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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



HERRICK JOHNSON 

An Appreciative Memoir 



BY 

CHARLES E. ROBINSON, D.D. 

Author of 

*' Maltbie Davenport Babcock : A Reminiscent Sketch " 




New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 



Copyright, 1914, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 125 N. Wabash Ave. 
Toronto: 2*5 '.Richmond St., W. 
London: 2I' Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 



NOV -7 1914 

©CI.A387378 
1<4 , 



TO 

J$lr& $$zvvkk 3 ofjn^on 

who has won the gratitude 
and love of Dr. Johnson's many friends 
by the love and happy home and tender care 
she gave him during the last years of his life, 
This Memoir 
is respectfully dedicated by the Author 



1 



FOREWORD 



S this tribute to the memory of one so 



widely beloved goes out from the press, 



desire to acknowledge my indebtedness 
to those who have generously aided me in pre- 
paring it and to tender my thanks. Were it not 
for the remarkable work done by the first Mrs. 
Johnson in preserving in many scrapbooks 
items that helped to tell the story of her hus- 
band's large, full life, this memoir could not 
have been prepared at all. It was one of the 
many ways through which she expressed her 
devotion to him through the nearly fifty years of 
their singularly happy life. Nor should I fail to 
thank Mrs. Blinn, widow of the Rev. H. G. Blinn, 
formerly of Cambridge, N. Y., for opening up 
the treasures of her youth and giving me access 
to a delightful correspondence she had with Dr. 
Johnson in his early life. But for this great 
kindness the specially interesting features of his 
fine boyhood and young manhood could not have 
been brought to light. His sister, Mrs. Oscar 
Gray, of St. Louis, Mo., also furnished most 
interesting material for that period, for which 
I am indebted. 

From Dr. E. C. Ray, D.D., for many years 




5 



6 



FOREWORD 



Secretary of the College Board of the Presby- 
terian Church, who knew Dr. Johnson most 
intimately; Mrs. Cyrus McCormick, and the 
Faculty of the McCormick Theological Seminary 
in Chicago, and from my publishers, I have re- 
ceived very marked encouragement in my im- 
perfect effort to portray the impressive and 
inspiring personality of this noble friend and 
teacher of men. For it all I am both apprecia- 
tive and thankful, as I am for the helpful sym- 
pathy of the present Mrs. Johnson, which I have 
expressed in my desire to dedicate this book to 
her. I only wish it were a better, a finer book — 
one not showing so plainly the effect of declining 
years. Yet whatever its merits, whatever its 
shortcomings, it is offered in tender tribute to the 
memory of the man I knew and loved so well. 

Charles E. Robinson. 

Pelham Manor, N. Y., 
August 27, 1914. 



CONTENTS 



I Early Years and Memories . . 9 

II Troy, N. Y., i860- 1863 — Pittsburgh, 

Pa., 1 863- 1 867 — Marquette, Mich., 
1868 34 

III Philadelphia, 1868-1874 ... 48 

IV Auburn Theological Seminary, 

1874-1880 68 

V Fourth Presbyterian Church of 

Chicago, III., 1880-1883 . 83 
VI McCormick Theological Seminary, 

1883-1903 98 

VII Afternoon and Evening Time, 1905- 

1913 147 



" Master in his work, distinguished in per- 
sonality, a prince of preachers, educator and 
leader of leaders, a consummate Christian states- 
man, superb in assemblies, fearless knight of the 
conscience, courageous commander of the forces 
of righteousness, exponent of every grace of 
courteous manhood, and, above all, linking to 
himself, by the power of love and gratitude, the 
men of the ministry in all parts of the world, 
who sat at his feet." 

(Quoted from Dr. Hill's opening address at the great 
memorial service held in the First Presbyterian 
Church, Philadelphia, Dec. 7, 1913). 



I 



EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 

" Preaching is to take the truths of Holy Scripture, and 
unfold, illustrate, and amplify them for enlighten- 
ment and persuasion, and under the guidance of 
the Holy Spirit to have them intensified by profound 
personal conviction, fused in the fire of one's own 
soul, poured upon waiting ears and hearts from 
lips touched with God's altar fires, and accompanied 
by every possible adjunct of effective posture and 
gesture and voice — this is preaching." 

— Herrick Johnson. 

HERRICK JOHNSON and I met for the 
first time in September, 1853, at Ham- 
ilton College, where we entered the class 
of '57. We soon afterward joined the Alpha 
Delta Phi Society, which at once brought us into 
an intimate association, out of which grew the 
friendship of our life, strengthening with the 
years, until his death in November, 1913. The 
last ten years were the best of all, intimate and 
affectionate to the close. It was in these last 
years that, in great modesty, he exacted a prom- 
ise from me, that if a biography of him were 
thought worth while, I should have charge of it, 
should I survive him. It comes to me therefore 
as a sacred trust, but with a profound sense' 



10 HERRICK JOHNSON 



of being unequal to a task (especially on account 
of the infirmities of years) which calls for a 
vigor and intellectual vivacity of which the many 
years of my life may have deprived me. But at 
the strong desire of his family and closest friends 
I take it up, with the hope and prayer that the 
devoted friendship of our sixty years may sup- 
plement the loss of other things. 

When Herrick Johnson entered college he was 
tall, lithe, athletic, with a serious purpose even 
then stamped on his face, but with also a merry 
heart, a keen sense of humor, and a hearty laugh 
which was most contagious. The corridor in 
which he roomed was not a particularly quiet 
one. He loved noise, his physical enjoyment of 
life was very intense, and his shout and song 
rang through the College halls. 

I learned later that he was born in Kaughne- 
waga, in the town of Fonda, N. Y., September 
22, 1832. His father was Mr. J. Jay Johnson, 
his mother Mrs. Lydia French Herrick John- 
son. His mother died comparatively early, leav- 
ing two sons, Jay and Herrick. Mr. Johnson 
was a commission merchant, who is said to have 
built the first grain elevator in the city of Buffalo. 

The family was well-to-do. Mr. Johnson's 
older brothers belonged to the class known as 
gentlemen farmers in New York State. He 
married, for his second wife, Miss S. Katherine 
Hequembourg. The fruit of this marriage was 
a daughter, still living (Mrs. Oscar Gray of 



EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 11 



St. Louis, Mo.), who, on the death of her father, 
became the tender charge of her half-brother 
Herrick, who, with characteristic thoughtfulness 
and affection, attended to her education, seeing 
to her graduation at the then famous Seminary 
of Mrs. Emma Willard, Troy, N. Y., and as all 
who know him would be prepared to believe, 
he was a most devoted brother. There was also 
a sister Margaret, who died a few years ago, 
and Mr. Charles W. Johnson, now residing in 
Webster Groves, Mo. 

Herrick Johnson's eldest brother was Jay 
Johnson, a civil engineer, who died in a fire in 
Nevada, in a supposedly fireproof building, 
where, in the dense smoke, he had gone to secure 
a map which he had made. Little is known 
about him; but the effect of his awful death on 
his father, completely prostrating him and from 
which he never rallied, showed that the son pos- 
sessed qualities of mind and heart that made 
him inexpressibly dear to his father. Had Mr. 
Johnson realized into what a splendid manhood 
and glorious career of usefulness his younger 
son Herrick would develop, he might possibly 
have rallied his powers to live for him. 

Mr. Johnson sent his son Herrick to James- 
town, N. Y., to prepare for college. Here the 
brother of his second wife lived, a gentleman of 
rare nature and culture, the Rev. Charles E. 
Hequembourg, a graduate of Yale and at that 
time the pastor of a church at Jamestown. Her- 



12 HERRICK JOHNSON 



rick loved him, and had a short but happy stay 
under his roof. Jamestown was at that time 
noted for its culture, refinement, and churches, 
and there were three men in the town who 
exerted a peculiarly strong influence upon the 
young man's intellectual, moral, and spiritual 
life. They were his stepmother's brother, the 
Rev. Charles E. Hequembourg, just referred to; 
a very influential Dr. Gray, a man of devoted 
piety, to whom Herrick used often to refer, 
especially as to his remarkable power in prayer, 
and, later, the Rev. H. G. Blinn, who married 
a daughter of Dr. Gray's and who, with his wife 
and her family, were immediately instrumental 
in the conversion of Herrick Johnson. This 
daughter of Dr. Gray, Mrs. Blinn, was a young 
woman of remarkable presence and intellectual 
power. She became an intimate friend of Her- 
rick's, and at that early period of his life exerted 
over him a very quickening and intellectual 
influence. Their correspondence through all his 
early life was very delightful. Occasionally 
some of Herrick's college friends had an oppor- 
tunity to read a letter of hers, and they never 
forgot it. Undoubtedly Herrick owed more than 
can be told to his association with Jamestown 
life. Mrs. Blinn is still living in honorable 
retirement at Cambridge, Washington County, 
N. Y., cherishing the precious memories of that 
early friendship. 

In his letters to his dear friend Mrs. Blinn at 



EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 13 



this time of his life Herrick frequently refers to 
his intense desire for the conversion of his father 
and his fervent prayer for him, and at the time 
of his death, which occurred while Herrick was 
in Hamilton College, he writes to her. October 
5, 1855, as follows : " Yesterday I stood at the 
bedside of my father and saw him die. Without 
pain or paroxysm he breathed his last breath, and 
went almost smiling into eternity. His expres- 
sion ever since has been so pleasant, so unlike 
death, that it almost assures me he is at rest. 
And yet — and yet — my sister, he never gave me 
evidence of a change of heart. When I came to 
him in this last sickness, he recognized me, 
indeed, and could speak rationally now and then, 
but his mind wandered so frequently that I could 
say nothing to him of Jesus. He told Dr. Reed, 
the minister, that he was ready and willing to 
die. Fearing, doubting, trembling, I am assured 
of nothing. But I did so long for some evidences 
of his acceptance. It makes me doubt my own, 
for surely I have been conscious of as faithful, 
earnest heartfelt prayer for him as for myself. 
It is all dark, drearily dark, and yet I am calm, 
so calm it almost alarms me. Be pitiful, O God! 
— Herrick/' 

Referring to his sense of loss in the death of 
his mother, who died in his early youth, and to 
his longing for home, he replied as follows to 
Mrs. Blinn's question as to whether he ever 
thought of her father's home (Dr. Gray's), 



U HERRICK JOHNSON 



where he was ever most welcome : " Think of 
it? think of it, do you say? The home that has 
been mine in some sense as it has been yours, 
don't I think of it? Do you remember the little 
stranger lad that stood leaning on a gate looking 
over at that same home ten years ago this next 
Thanksgiving Day? He remembers the leaning 
and the looking, and how two years after God 
gave him a place at the board by the hearth, 
and at the altar of that blessed home, and how 
the dear group he found there gave him a place 
in their hearts. To-day — to-day, he is full to 
weeping, dear friend, at the memory of it, while 
he thanks God for the gift. He wasn't grateful 
to the Giver then, not until those same hearts had 
agonized for the adopted one, not until one of 
that loved circle [Mrs. Blinn, to whom he was 
writing, herself young in the Divine life] came 
from her closet with God one Sabbath and told 
him in her own sweet simple way the story of the 
Cross and said, ' Be a Christian, Herrick.' Let 
the tears fall, for they are holy. And he remem- 
bers the mother in that home, how she loved 
the newly-born child of God, cared for him, 
prayed for him, counselled him; and how she 
died, triumphantly, gloriously, peacefully, and 
then ' went Home indeed.' What a rush 
of precious holy memories, and how they all 
cluster there. That home! That home! Don't 
I think of it? shall I ever forget it? " 

Both Herrick and myself had a most intimate 



EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 15 



friend, who died suddenly in his Junior year — 
Charles M. Ferrin, from Watertown, N. Y. 
Still writing to Mrs. Blinn, he poured out his 
heart in grief : " Charlie had become very dear 
to me. Our intimacy of a year and more, our 
close companionship, our daily worship at a 
common altar, our precious evening prayers, 
when we together met with God, had served to 
bind my heart to him much closer than I had 
thought. I knew not that I loved him half so 
well, until I saw him passing away. He met 
with an accident while riding downhill, result- 
ing in congestion of the brain, from which he 
died. He passed into a state of stupor out of 
which he never came. For three days and nights 
I watched beside him, wishing, longing, praying 
for some signs of recognition, but not a word, 
not a look, was given. When his mother, who 
had been summoned to his bedside and who had 
lost an older son in the same college, some years 
before, besought him to speak to her and there 
was no response, it was enough to unman the 
stoutest heart, and I wept like a child. Fare- 
well, Chum Charlie — Angel Charlie — till we meet 
again to make sweet melody with our hearts in 
Heaven. Farewell ! " 

Mrs. Blinn writes me very suggestively of that 
early life : " When Herrick came to us, he was 
a clean, rollicking, cheery boy, seeming to have 
no thought at all of the spiritual life. Mr. Blinn 
followed Mr. Hequembourg very soon after 



16 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Herrick's coming to Jamestown, and then, at 
once, he became one of our family. When the 
season of the great revival in our church, under 
Mr. Blinn's ministry, came, Herrick was boy- 
ishly inclined (not to sneer) but to take the 
subject very lightly, apparently. We all loved 
him, and he and I, fellow-students in the Acad- 
emy, were the best of friends — really comrades — 
engaged in much the same studies, and both 
somewhat of a literary turn of mind. Being on 
such terms, I and he had a considerable influence 
over each other. Then, when the religious in- 
terest in our church deepened, I being already 
a communicant, and very desirous of influencing 
him in things of the spirit, began to try to turn 
his attention that way. He tried to laugh at 
me, but I ' screwed up my courage ' and resisted 
his ridicule. My parents were godly people and 
always at the family altar, where all members of 
the family, who were not yet numbered among 
those confessing Christ as their personal Savior, 
were specially remembered. Herrick still held 
aloof. But to me, his girl comrade, and to my 
godly father and my most lovely mother, he 
always attributed his turning at that time unto 
God. It was in 1847 ne became an inmate in our 
family. In 1850, I married and left home. Her- 
rick's union with our family was that of a son 
and brother, and so continued until his mar- 
riage in i860. As I have said above, he was a 
particularly bright, intelligent lad, more than 



EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 17 



clever, honest, square, generous to a fault; up- 
right, with absolutely nothing low or mean in 
spirit, or soul, or heart, or temper. Amiable, 
lovely, and loving. He had a most affectionate, 
sympathetic heart." 

Although the letter here following was writ- 
ten to Dr. McCook, June, 1902, from Lake 
Mohonk, I quote it here, at the outset, as it 
relates especially to Dr. Johnson's boyhood. It 
was written to correct a statement made by 
Dr. McCook in an address on Dr. Johnson, who 
at that time, in the great debates of the Revision 
of the Standards, was in the forefront of the 
contest, and many people were interested in his 
possible early history. Dr. McCook stated that 
Dr. Johnson began life as an errand boy and a 
stable boy, and Dr. Johnson in this letter seeks 
to correct the erroneous statement: 

" Dear Dr. McCook : The picture you painted 
by your imagination has a good deal of basis in 
fact. The town was Jamestown, in western 
New York. Dr. Alfred Gray was the physician ; 
a bright, keen-spirited, and swift little mare 
called Nellie was the horse, and I was the boy. 
And there I first studied Latin. But I became 
devotedly attached to the household before I 
became a Christian, and spent months in the 
beautiful home, before I went back to prepare 
for college, in order that I might become a 
Minister of the Gospel. In the loft of that barn, 



18 IERRICK JOHNSON 



in earlier days, I cried to God for mercy, and 
after an ' inquiry meeting ' in the old First 
Church, I went into the basement and there, 
alone in the dark, I found the light and the peace 
of God. I went back that next spring to Buffalo, 
where my father lived, a respectable, fairly well- 
to-do business man, and renewed the occupation 
of the previous year, taking my old position in a 
forwarding and commission office, but with my 
heart no longer in trade. The desire was planted 
in me, and it grew and grew as the days and 
weeks and months went by, that I must be a 
preacher of the Gospel. That desire never left 
me. I waited a year to test it, that I might surely 
know whether it was a temporary enthusiasm 
born of the hour, or a conviction born of the 
Spirit of God. Meanwhile, I kept at my post 
as a shipping clerk, having made public profes- 
sion of my faith in Christ, and united with the 
First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo, of which 
Dr. M. L. P. Thompson was then the pastor. 

" Later I talked with my father of my growing 
conviction and desire to become a minister. He 
was surprised and disappointed. He had counted 
on a business career for me. I had already won 
the confidence of the house in which I was em- 
ployed, and had very gratifying assurances from 
the head of it. This study for the ministry meant 
eight or nine years of academic training. My 
father was opposed to it. He had no objection to 
the ministry as such, while not then a professing 



EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 19 



Christian. He attended regularly the services 
of the sanctuary, and contributed regularly to 
its support. But he had set his heart upon my 
achieving business success. After further con- 
sideration, I went to him again, some weeks later, 
and told him that the desire had grown with the 
lapse of time and that I must have his consent 
to begin preparation for college. He gave it, 
but said his circumstances were such that he 
could not render me any assistance at all ad- 
equate to the need. He had always cared for 
his family by a reasonable competence. We 
children had had a good common school, and I 
an excellent private school, education, but I had 
never touched the classics. At one time my 
father was quite successful in the forwarding 
and commission business, being one of a com- 
pany running a special line of boats of their own 
on the Erie Canal between Buffalo and Albany, 
but he had met with reverses, and when I began 
studying with a view to the ministry was not 
able to render me any material aid. I had been 
at Jamestown a couple of winters, visiting and 
reading for the Rev. Charles Hequembourg, a 
brother of my father's second wife. There I 
became acquainted with Dr. Gray's family, living 
just opposite, and I at last became so attached 
to that family, and they to me, that I made their 
house my home, when Mr. Hequembourg moved 
from the village. 

" The Grays became very dear to me, and I 



20 HERRICK JOHNSON 



was like an adopted son. Their house seemed 
an outer court of Heaven. Mrs. Gray was a 
saintly soul, and Dr. Alfred Gray was to my 
mind the nearest to an ideal of a good physician 
I ever met. I never knew a physician who so 
carried his patients on his heart, and who so 
bore them to God in prayer. It was under this 
family influence, and under the preaching of the 
Rev. H. G. Blinn, that I was brought to Christ. 
I was in that family as a son. I was not hired 
to do anything, but my chief work was to keep 
the doctor's books, and prepare his medicines. 
The care of the horse was a purely incidental 
matter, but that bay mare, spirited and gentle, 
was my pride and joy. I groomed her as I 
would a pet dog. 

" You can readily see from all this, Dr. 
McCook, that your representation of my early 
career conveys a false impression. It does not 
tell the truth in the statement that I began life 
as a stable boy. In referring to me as an errand 
boy and a stable boy it conveys the impression 
that I was a hired hostler employed in a stable. 
If I had been, I should not have been ashamed 
of it. The greater would have been the credit 
for overcoming unfavorable conditions. And 
there is no disgrace whatever in having been 
employed in a stable. But it does not happen 
to be the truth, and I am sorry you made such 
public use of false premises. If your address 
should go to print, this feature of it should be 



EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 21 



made to conform to the facts. I intimated as 
much as this in referring to the ' picture painted 
by your imagination.' Under the pressure that 
was upon me, just prior to the Assembly, I could 
not take the time for these details. But I did not 
dream you were to give your statement the wide 
publicity that followed. I think you should have 
consulted me before embodying it in an historic 
address." 

It was the greatest blessing to him, and 
to the world, that he responded favorably 
to the intellectual and Christian life with which 
he was surrounded at Jamestown, for he would 
have been a great sinner had he not become a 
saint. He had it in him to be one or the 
other. He did nothing by halves. In his 
boyhood some bright alluring associates led 
him to the saloons of Buffalo, where he was for 
a time quite fascinated, his bonhomie, his fine 
voice, his gifts for speaking making him a strong 
asset of that life. But he soon felt the shame 
and sin of it, and in the face of the derision of 
his companions broke away from it. They went 
on their own way, and after a while were lost 
in the flood of evil, while he went on his way, 
constantly upward to the perfect day. 

One of his best preparations for college was 
the facility and love for writing and public speak- 
ing he possessed in his school days. I have on 
my desk an essay, written in fine, almost micro- 



n HERRICK JOHNSON 



scopic, and beautiful chirography when Herrick 
was about fifteen years old, which took a prize. 
Early in life he delivered in a public hall a tem- 
perance address — the beginning of his lifelong 
eloquent advocacy of the cause of temperance. 
In coming to Hamilton College he found a con- 
tagious influence in that direction. The very 
night he arrived there was the great event of 
the commencement week, the contest for the 
prize, by the twelve best speakers — four from 
each of the three under classes — and the oc- 
casion when Charles E. Knox, afterwards the 
celebrated Dr. Knox of the German Theo- 
logical Seminary, won the first prize Fresh- 
man year — the highest prize of all. Those who 
are still alive, who entered college at that time, 
will never forget the thrill and excitement of 
that contest. Undoubtedly it has been so ever 
since at every commencement, for Hamilton 
College has always given great attention to pub- 
lic speaking and class orations. The high stand- 
ard was set by a remarkably gifted man, Pro- 
fessor Mandeville, who instituted a system in 
the study of oratory and public speaking which 
has been known ever since, with some modifica- 
tions, as the " Mandevillian System/' 

In 1853, Dr. Anson J. Upson was in the 
Mandevillian chair, and had lifted up to still 
greater height the standard of public speaking, 
and had awakened a great, inextinguishable 
enthusiasm for it. Not one of the boys who 



EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 23 



entered that year, and who were at that prize 
speaking contest, could fail to be seized with the 
public speaking craze. It specially met Herrick 
Johnson's taste and trend and gifts, and fired his 
highest aim. Probably there was nothing he 
wanted so much as the prize in his class at the 
next commencement. But unfortunately his 
standards and ideals of public speaking were just 
then as far as possible from the Mandevillian 
standard. He had acquired what was called a 
ministerial tone and other faults fatal to any 
success, unless eradicated. The best speakers of 
the upper classes were the recognized and ac- 
cepted " drillers " of the new boys, who at once 
put themselves under their care and criticism. 
Every spring and fall a certain valley with a 
grove, north of the college, was the resort of 
the aspirants for success at this time. The 
woods would ring with their " exercises " and 
strenuous declamation, and I presume it is the 
same to-day. 

Herrick Johnson had a magnificent voice, well- 
nigh ruined by his sins against the right method 
of using it. He soon saw that it was going to 
be essential for him to go down to the foundation 
of his wrong methods and break them all up 
and absolutely eradicate his " tone." It was no 
easy thing to do, but the young man was in- 
tensely ambitious, and so he worked with the 
greatest energy. He failed of an appointment 
op the " best four " of his Freshman class. But 



U HERRICK JOHNSON 



he worked away during Sophomore year and 
failed again. But the upperclassmen saw his 
pluck, they recognized his grand voice, and they 
worked with him during his junior year, until 
he had mastered the Mandevillian style, wholly 
eradicated his " tone/' corrected all defects, and 
got his appointment for one of the best four 
speakers of the Junior year; and on the prize 
speaking night of that commencement, he went 
on the platform conscious of his power and swept 
everything before him as the Junior prize speaker. 
It set the standard for that young man. Voice, 
manner, address were all masterful and ac- 
counted easily for his great success as a public 
speaker through all his subsequent prominent 
and successful career in his profession. 

I have dwelt at considerable length on this 
experience of his, as it was, in a certain sense, 
the turning point in his public life, and his suc- 
cess showed, as nothing else in college, his mas- 
terful qualities. His standing in college was 
high. He took several prizes in writing, but it 
was in public speaking and prize debates, that 
he went up to the front. It was inevitable that 
the eyes of the college should be turned toward 
him and that the faculty, who are not easily 
deceived by " the men," had great hopes of his 
future. A peculiarly warm and devoted friend- 
ship sprang up between that rare man, Professor 
Edward North, and Herrick Johnson, so that 
when years afterward that greatly beloved " Gre- 



EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 25 



cian " came to die, Herrick Johnson (to quote 
from President M. Woolsey Stryker, writing 
from Hamilton College) was selected in 1903 to 
" make the memorial address here, in tribute to 
our long time beloved Professor Edward North. 
He did it in most complete and welcome style." 

He was happy in his selection of Auburn The- 
ological Seminary as the institution for his pro- 
fessional studies. The city of Auburn was itself 
delightful, and the warm love and pride of the 
citizens for the seminary gave to the students a 
homelike environment quite unlike that of the 
average theological seminary. 

To his friend, Mrs. Blinn, he wrote a descrip- 
tion of his room in the old seminary building, 
which I quote, certain that if any clergymen are 
now living who roomed in that old building read 
it, they will recall with interest that part of their 
life which was spent there : " Take my arm now, 
and we'll visit my little home of a room together. 
You know I said the building fronts south, so 
here we go up the gravelled walk, entering the 
door of the west wing, up one flight of stairs and 
opening the first door at the right, we find the 
rear middle room, second story of the west wing, 
with windows facing the north. This is my 
sanctum — walk in. Just at your left elbow in a 
corner, close by one of the windows, is a high 
desk, designed as a relief when one gets tired 
of sitting. There I shall occasionally stand and 
study or write. Between the two windows hangs 



26 HERRICK JOHNSON 



the little monitor that ticks off the seconds as 
they come and go, out of time into the past 
eternity. It reminds me often of another time- 
piece, my beating heart, whose rusted machinery 
has been made to run smoothly again by my 
visit to Jamestown. Beyond the second window, 
in the northeast corner, is a stand and bookcase, 
the latter just large enough to receive my little 
library. The four shelves of books look so cozy 
there, and give such a literary air to the room, 
that I am vastly pleased with the northeast 
corner. Passing your eye along the east side, 
you meet the stove about midway, standing well 
out in the room and a perfect little gem in its 
way, both in its appearance and utility. On the 
southeast corner, see that alcove partially 
screened by tasteful curtains ? Just outside there, 
my sister, is my praying place. There I try to 
talk with God. Elsewhere also, but there espe- 
cially seek I communion with my Elder Brother. 
There you are remembered and the other loved 
ones. Within that alcove is a comfortable bed 
on which I pillow my head of nights and rest- 
fully sleep, perchance to dream. Passing on to 
the southwest corner, you see a door that opens 
into my clothes-press and wash room, and so 
you finally reach the main entrance again. The 
centre table, at which I am now writing, is some 
little distance from the north side, where the 
windows are, and about midway between a com- 
fortable remove from the stove and from all 



EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES STt 



points easily accessible. Here I shall do the most 
of my studying and writing. Here the thoughts 
of my letters to you shall wipe their sandals as 
they go in with the sheet of blotting paper now 
before me as the doormat. Here I shall dig 
after Hebrew roots, strive to digest mental food, 
discipline my mind, and store it with such mate- 
rials as shall the better fit me for usefulness in 
the years to come." 

There was a close relation between the sem- 
inary and the churches of the city, and at that 
time peculiarly so with the First Presbyterian 
Church, then one of the grandest churches in 
central New York, under the inspiring ministry 
of Dr. Charles Hawley. Very few theological 
students had had an opportunity to attend such 
a notable prayer meeting as was held every week 
in that church, or to hear such laymen give their 
testimony as Dr. Steele, Dr. Willard, and others 
did. The first year of Herrick Johnson's semi- 
nary life was in 1857, at the time of the great 
revival that spread through the country. Auburn 
churches were always specially responsive to 
such great awakenings. The religious life at 
that time was very intense, and greatly inter- 
ested and affected the students — especially Her- 
rick Johnson. He was, as has been stated, very 
ambitious in college, and while his ambition was 
strong, intense, immense, it was not then always 
consecrated. But at this time his soul was moved 
to its depths, and he made a dedication of him- 



28 HERRICK JOHNSON 

self, so complete and spiritual as to radically 
change his Christian experience, with this great 
result — that all his traits and gifts and tenden- 
cies were consecrated. He came into a humble, 
devout, reverent spirit, which ever afterwards 
characterized him. He had always a dominating 
way with him, but it became controlled, enriched, 
and sweetened. Not until then did his friends 
realize the depth and strength of his affections. 
Strong, sometimes assertive, blazing away with 
intensity in the defence of great questions and 
principles, it was, after all, from this time that 
his heart controlled him, controlled, as it in turn 
was, by the Spirit of God. 

The faculty of the seminary held very friendly 
relations with the students. Dr. Samuel M. 
Hopkins, cultured, brilliant, and fascinating, if 
sometimes somewhat erratic; Dr. Huntington, 
witty, friendly, charming, and at home in 
Hebrew; Dr. J. B. Condit, polished, devout, the 
very ideal of the old-fashioned cultured New 
England preacher, and Dr. Edward Hall, with 
his old-time theology, benign face, sturdy heroic 
persistence in the face of failing health, a splen- 
did example of a man possessed with a pure and 
noble purpose — these were the men of sterling 
worth to whom the seminary students had access. 
If they could not measure up to some of the 
educational ideals of to-day, they would, at least, 
stand among the highest anywhere and at any 
time, in character, devotion, single-hearted con- 



! 



EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 29 



secration to Jesus Christ, and as such their influ- 
ence upon the student was inspiring and lasting. 
As a rule the life at a theological seminary is 
freer from the dividing contests and selfish aims 
of college life. And so it was that the men had 
one purpose, one aim, and so dropped the ag- 
gressive spirit of college days. Herrick John- 
son greatly enjoyed the life in the seminary. 
When not occupied with his studies, which he 
pursued with a scholar's instinct, he was often 
in hot debate with his dear old friend, Thomas 
Sherrard (who died all too early to fulfil the 
fine promise of his life), walking up and down 
their rooms, with their long study gowns flying 
as they vehemently argued, shaking their fists 
in each other's faces, but under radically differ- 
ent conditions from those of whom Milton sang — 

" — Reasoned high 
Of Providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate — 
Fix'd fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute 
And found no end in wandering mazes lost. 
Of good and evil much they argued then, 
Of happiness and final misery, 
Passion and apathy and glory and shame." 

Herrick made his corridor about as noisy as 
he did in college, filled as he was with the joy 
of life. On the campus he ran for the ball with 
great vehemence. In our primitive gymnasium 
it was fine to see him swing himself with the 
rings, rising with physical prowess, and throw- 
ing his muscular frame out to the limit. There 



80 HERRICK JOHNSON 



was a certain eagerness to succeed in athletics, 
which was characteristic of the whole man. 
Eagerness was the best word, perhaps, to use to 
describe his method in college, seminary, or the 
world at large. The ideal eagle, not the real 
bird, the ideal lion, not the feline beast of the 
jungles, would well denote the look on his face. 
After his spiritual re-baptism, " aspiration " 
might be a better word to employ than eagerness, 
but one must combine them to get a true idea of 
what manner of man he was. 

Herrick Johnson owed a great deal to the deep 
interest awakened among young people at that 
time in Tennyson, the Brownings, and Owen 
Meredith. The students were all talking about 
Tennyson's In Memoriam and Mrs. Browning's 
Aurora Leigh, Drama of Exile, and Sonnets 
from the Portuguese and Robert Browning's 
Saul, By the Fireside, and others. Great poems 
these, which are certainly not shelved now — 
but they were new then — and the enthusiasm 
over them was intense. 

I remember going into Herrick's room one 
morning and finding him ill and designing to 
remain in bed. I offered to read to him, and 
he chose Mrs. Browning's Drama of Exile. I 
soon became too absorbed to think of him. When 
at the height of the Drama I turned to the bed 
and found him sitting up straight, his arms lifted 
up in a sort of rapture. That is the way we took 
our great literature in those days. 



EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 31 



It was here, in Auburn, that he found his 
dearly beloved wife of many years. The Har- 
denburg family was one of the best and most 
honored families in the city, and Miss Kate 
Hardenburg was unquestionably a young woman 
of rare intellectual culture, and of strong per- 
sonal influence. The Hardenburg residence was 
the centre of a charming social and literary life. 
The newest poet, the latest book, were always 
discussed there, with cultured discrimination. 
Mr. James Cox, a prominent lawyer of Auburn, 
and son of the celebrated Dr. Samuel Harson 
Cox, played the violin very well. One evening in 
each week he brought in the best music, to which 
Miss Kate Hardenburg played the accompani- 
ments. They were delightful evenings. A few 
students were privileged also to resort to them, 
among them Herrick Johnson. Before the close 
of the second or middle year of the seminary, 
his engagement to Miss Kate Hardenburg was 
announced, to the delight of many friends. It 
was a union greatly blest to them both, through 
a long and happy life. 

There were three of us — Herrick Johnson, 
Smith Harris Hyde ("Harry," as we affec- 
tionately called him, of blessed memory), and I, 
who went three times a day to our boarding 
place on Grover Street. The way took us past 
the corner of the old First Presbyterian Church, 
which looked out on the rear of the Hardenburg 
mansion, across the street. Every morning there 



32 HERRICK JOHNSON 



was a face and hand at the window to greet 
Herrick, and an answering recognition with 
waving of hat and a sort of Jim Crow shuffle. 
The fun and spirit and that hand from the win- 
dow come back to me over the waste of years, 
and I recall it with smile and sigh. 

There was at that time a most enjoyable 
service open to the students for the first year 
and a half of their course, — teaching classes in 
the prison, Sunday morning. There were gen- 
erally about two hundred of the prisoners al- 
lowed to be present, and the interest displayed 
both by teacher and pupils was very inspiring. 
Toward the last of the middle year such students 
as had been licensed to preach gave up their 
prison classes in order to be ready to supply 
vacant pulpits in the country churches round 
about Auburn. It was while engaged in this 
work in the latter half of the Senior year that 
some one from Troy, N. Y., heard Herrick John- 
son and was so struck with his personality and 
his preaching that he gave his name to a com- 
mittee of the First Presbyterian Church of Troy, 
who were on the lookout for an assistant to the 
venerable Dr. Beman, who, having filled his pul- 
pit for many years with great ability and won- 
derful power, was now feeble through age. The 
committee invited him to supply their pulpit, and 
in a very short time he was called to the position 
of assistant pastor and a committee was ap- 
pointed to confer with him at Utica, half-way 



EARLY YEARS AND MEMORIES 33 



between Troy and Auburn. There was great 
excitement among our set of fellows, and six 
of us met Herrick at the railroad station on his 
return and took him to an oyster saloon, and 
calling for a private room, sat down to the simple 
meal, and said, " Now tell us all about it." He 
told us fully about the meeting with the com- 
mittee, the conference, and his acceptance of the 
call. We asked him what his salary would be, 
and when he told us that it was to be fifteen 
hundred dollars we almost fell under the table! 

It was the time of small salaries for 
young men, and we thought with amazement of 
the way he would roll in wealth. We asked 
him if he was not afraid of being " set up," of 
losing his spirituality. He and I have often 
laughed over it since, but at the time it took us 
days to get over our astonishment. Herrick 
graduated with honors in the spring of i860. 
His entire class loved him and was very proud 
of him. He entered as soon as possible on his 
field of service as assistant pastor in the First 
Presbyterian Church in Troy, and on September 
6, i860, was married to Miss Katherine Spencer 
Hardenburg and so began his great career as a 
minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. 



II 



TROY, N. Y., 1860-63— PITTSBURGH, PA., 
1 863-67 — MARQUETTE, MICH., 1868 



"Then I preached Christ, and when she heard the 
story — 

(Oh! is such triumph possible to men?) 
Hardly, my King, had I beheld Thy glory, 
Hardly had known Thy excellence till then. 

Oft when the Word is on me to deliver, 
Opens the Heaven and the Lord is there, 
Desert or throng, the city or the river, 
Melt in a lucid paradise of air." 



HE First Presbyterian Church of Troy, 



to which Herrick Johnson was called to be 



assistant pastor, was, without doubt, at 
that time not only the foremost Presbyterian 
church in the city, but also a notable church in 
northern and eastern New York State. Dr. 
Beman was a Southern man, of very pronounced 
Northern principles, invincibly opposed to slav- 
ery, and of clearly defined New-School theolog- 
ical views. He was a man who had the courage 
of his convictions, and great ability in presenting 
them. He held a free lance on Thanksgiving 
Day, and regularly aroused such antagonism in 
those who did not agree with his political views 
that several of them would leave the church in 



— F. W. H. Myers. 




34 



TROY— PITTSBURGH— MARQUETTE 35 



white heat, vowing that they would never enter 
it again. But he was so much of a man, so 
tender in his preaching on the love of God, en- 
dowed with such power in argument., so irre- 
sistible in persuasion, so fascinating, that those 
very men who would leave the church on Thanks- 
giving Day were always drawn back again. He 
educated men and women to be thinkers, and 
his congregation were thoroughly capable of 
digesting solid food in preaching, and both 
wanted and welcomed it. 

Herrick Johnson was unusually mature at the 
time of his graduation from the theological sem- 
inary. He stood every inch a man, at once chal- 
lenging the attention of his hearers. He was 
not New School in his theology. He would have 
been a stern Calvinist had it not been for his 
heart, and he, like Dr. Beman. had great courage 
and boldness in preaching the truth. His voice 
was like a great organ with many stops, from 
the vox humana to the open diapason. He had 
perfect control of it. He had, even then, a re- 
markable gift in prayer. There was a reverent, 
tender, exquisitely solemn quality without any 
" solemn tone " to his voice that helped those 
whom he led in prayer to realize that they were 
in the very presence of God Himself. Such 
confession of sin, such penitence, such love, such 
adoration the people felt could be voiced only by 
one who himself was really praying. Those of 
his hearers whom he might have antagonized by 



36 HERRICK JOHNSON 



the force of his logic in pressing his Calvinistic 
views would find their hearts melted and tender 
under the influence of his closing prayer. His 
Troy people appreciated his ability in the pulpit, 
and were responsive to his preaching. 

Before his first year was over, the country was 
in the awful throes of civil war, and he was 
a leader in loyalty, and in opposition to slavery. 
He preached a very strong sermon on " The 
Ground of Submission to Civil Authority." In 
the course of his argument he said : " Rather 
than have this rebellion a success may a half a 
million loyal hearts give their life blood — give 
it freely and give it all. Rather than have it a 
success may every minister in the land leave the 
peaceful walks in which he is now pursuing his 
holy calling, and toughen the sinews, harden 
the muscles, and inure himself to hardships so 
as to do and dare and die like other men, on the 
battlefield. Rather than have it a success, I 
would gladly lay this body gashed and mangled 
in the enemies' trenches, and wish I had a 
thousand more to lay beside it." He closed his 
sermon with these words : " This rebellion will 
be worth all its suppression will cost, if it clears 
the atmosphere of all doubt as to the power and 
authority of government, restores our respect for 
rulers, by giving them their high position as 
ordained by Heaven, and leads us to submit to 
every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake — ' to 
fear God and honor the king.' " 



TROY— PITTSBURGH— MARQUETTE 37 

It is generally acknowledged that churches 
seeking for pastors feel a little more liberty in 
approaching an assistant pastor than one who 
has been a long time settled in his parish. It is 
natural that they should recognize an imperma- 
nency in such relations, and that the man occu- 
pying such a position should desire the larger 
liberty gained in the transfer to the full charge 
of a parish. It was not possible for Herrick 
Johnson to be let alone. He had, during his 
short ministry, already made too broad a mark, 
and taken too high a stand, to be lost sight of. 
Finally a very prominent church in the great 
city of Pittsburgh (the Third Presbyterian), 
which had lost its able pastor, Dr. Henry Ken- 
dall, by his transference to the secretaryship in 
the Board of Home Missions — a position which 
he filled until his death with great distinction and 
signal devotion to the Church and its Master — 
had its attention called to Herrick Johnson, who 
had been only two and a half years out of semi- 
nary, but who had made full proof of his min- 
istry. He was called in December, 1862, and 
on January 11, 1863, was installed pastor. It 
was a very inviting and important field for so 
young a man, but he showed no immaturity. 
Through God's blessing he stood equal to the 
position. 

" Great doors and effectual " were opened to 
him at once. The church was made up of some 



38 HERRICK JOHNSON 



of the finest men and women of the city, and 
large numbers of young men rallied around the 
young pastor, attracted not only by his youth, 
but by his marked ability, his genial spirit, and 
his great-heartedness. He had singularly 
marked qualities to lead young men — strength, 
enthusiasm, a lofty purpose, a deep Christian 
experience, and a strong love for his fellows. 
The young men leaped to his standard like the 
soldiers to the white-plumed Henry of Navarre. 
Institutions of learning summoned him to ad- 
dress them at their commencements, and a paper 
called the Risks of Thinking, which he delivered 
before the Literary Societies of Jefferson Col- 
lege during the first year of his pastorate in 
Pittsburgh, awakened especial attention. His own 
college (Hamilton) called him the same season 
to their commencement to address the graduating 
class. 

But in October of that year, the fine old build- 
ing of the Third Church was burned, and all the 
cares incident to such a great loss were suddenly 
heaped upon the young pastor. It was an emer- 
gency to which he proved himself equal, and 
the members of his great church realized that 
they had a man at their head. They determined 
not to re-roof the old walls of the building, but 
to build a new and beautiful church edifice. 
They did not, however, make this misfortune an 
excuse for not contributing to the great causes 
to which their church was committed. Herrick 



TROY — PITTSBURGH — MARQUETTE 39 



urged them not to let up on their beneficences. As 
a result they subscribed that very season over 
two thousand dollars to help endow the Board of 
Publication, and when the time came for their 
annual contribution to Home Missions, they gave 
over four thousand dollars ! At the same time 
Pittsburgh was the very centre of the great 
patriotic United States Christian Commission, 
which brought vast numbers of Christians of all 
denominations together to minister to the bodies 
and souls of hundreds of thousands of volun- 
teers. The New York Evangelist of May, '64, 
stated that one of the largest meetings ever held 
in Pittsburgh was one held in Dr. Patton's 
church. It was the second of a series of meet- 
ings on behalf of the United States Christian 
Commission in connection with the great national 
subscription of one million dollars. The Rev. 
Herrick Johnson presided. 

He had been now only four years out of the 
theological seminary. He was still a young man, 
except in the strong, capable way he met his 
public duties, which placed him in the forefront 
of the forceful citizens of the great city. The 
work of the Christian Commission in minister- 
ing to the sick and wounded soldiers appealed 
to him very strongly and was specially congenial 
to his great patriotism and large-hearted Chris- 
tian philanthropy. He did not spare himself. 
Aside from the large demands of his public work, 
he daily worked in the wards of the hospitals. 



40 HERRICK JOHNSON 



He wrote letters for the wounded boys to their 
friends at home; he pointed them to Jesus, he 
prayed with the dying. Possibly it was this that 
brought on a severe attack of diphtheria, which 
laid him aside for several months, and his de- 
voted people, in the midst of their sacrifice for 
the country and the building of their new church, 
and despite the fact that they had given him 
two thousand dollars to help him and Mrs. John- 
son to go into housekeeping, gave him three 
thousand dollars more to take him to Europe and 
to recuperate from his severe illness. Mrs. 
Johnson accompanied her husband, and they re- 
turned October 10, 1865, and at once plunged 
into the great work of a pastorate in a city such 
as Pittsburgh was in those strenuous times. In 
response to an invitation given to him about this 
time to address the Pittsburgh Temperance 
League, Herrick so treated the subject that a 
local newspaper stated that he " surpassed his 
usual powerful style of oratory, and delivered 
one of the most eloquent and impressive lectures 
we have ever had the pleasure of hearing." It 
was while preparing this lecture, as he sat at 
his desk with a cigar in his mouth, that he felt 
for the first time (as he told me afterwards) 
the force of the argument which we had often 
had with him against his smoking. " If there is 
any force in the point which I have just made 
in favor of temperance, it applies to this cigar 
which I am smoking." He arose from his 



TROY— PITTSBURGH— MARQUETTE 41 



chair and flung the cigar into the fire, and never 
smoked again. Such an action was characteristic 
of the man. 

It will be impossible to tell the full story of 
his " labors oft " in his Pittsburgh parish. In 
Synod and in General Assembly also he dis- 
tinguished himself, where it was said of him 
that " more like an ideal leader of the Church 
of the West, is the pastor of the Third Church, 
Pittsburgh, who, with his Elder Judge Wil- 
liams, forms one of the strongest delegations 
sent from any Presbytery/' But we must refer 
here to a signal tribute to the estimation in which 
he was held by his appointment to address the 
closing gathering of the United States Christian 
Commission held in the Hall of the House of 
Representatives in Washington, February n, 
1866. " The Assembly was composed of the 
distinguished and honored of the land, repre- 
senting perhaps more fully and truly the powers 
which wield our great nation than any similar 
assembly ever convened in our country's his- 
tory. The Hall was draped in tender reference 
to the memory of the beloved dead." We boys 
of Hamilton College and Auburn Seminary were 
very proud of our representative and fellow stu- 
dent standing there that day, a peer with all 
those great men, delivering his eloquent, thrill- 
ing address. A further honor awaited him, 
for after an address before the Phi Beta Kappa 
Society of the Western Reserve College, June 25, 



m HERRICK JOHNSON 



1867, the trustees conferred on him the title of 
Doctor of Divinity. 

Soon after that it became evident that the 
health of Mrs. Johnson was not equal to the 
peculiarly trying climate of Pittsburgh. Her 
physicians declared that to save her life she must 
leave the city at once. It was a sore trial all 
around. The pastor and church had been bound 
together by great soul-stirring times in the 
progress of the war. A great revival had been 
granted them ; large numbers had united with the 
church, and a great army of young men had 
rallied around him. The farewell meeting of 
the church on Sabbath morning and the address 
to the young men in the evening marked how 
high the tide of deep feeling and sorrow had 
risen. During the five years of his ministry his 
church had made an advance of nearly three hun- 
dred and fifty per cent, on its various causes of 
Christian benevolence and an advance of over 
five hundred per cent, on its voluntary contribu- 
tions to other causes, and that while engaged in 
building a costly church edifice. Those two fare- 
well services, especially the one in the evening, 
when the great congregation was composed al- 
most entirely of young men, were remembered 
for long years afterwards and are still tenderly 
recalled by those of the number now living. 
They were well-nigh heart-rending. Those who 
have never seen Dr. Johnson, save in the vehe- 
mence of public debate in Church Courts on some 



TiiOY— PITTSBURGH— MARQUETTE 43 



great question, can have little idea of the ten- 
derness of his heart, and the way he drew men 
to him — especially young men — as with hoops of 
steel. 

There are middle-aged men, pastors of im- 
portant churches, professors of theological semi- 
naries, and men at the head of great business 
enterprises, who were then parishioners of Dr. 
Herrick Johnson. And these men when they 
heard of his lamented death recalled away from 
1867 the precious memories of his ministry 
among them with warm and tender feeling, par- 
ticularly that notable farewell service, which 
almost broke their hearts. The Pittsburgh press 
expressed, on every side, the universal sorrow 
over his going. " An event which is regarded 
by Christians of every name as a misfortune to 
the city." The people of the Third Church 
offered Dr. Johnson a long leave of absence, 
but in the uncertain state of Mrs. Johnson's 
health it was not clear that it would ever be 
safe or desirable to bring her back to the smoky 
atmosphere. So, and being unwilling to keep 
them in a state of suspense, he pressed his resig- 
nation, which was, finally, but sorrowfully ac- 
cepted. The correspondent of the New York 
Evangelist said : " None who have heard him 
need be told of his power as an orator, and in 
regard to his constancy in labor we need only 
say that during the revival in this city last winter 
he preached for several months daily with almost 



44 HERRICK JOHNSON 



no help from any one. His church ranks second 
in the New School body, in point of liberality, 
yielding only to that of Dr. Adams of New York 
City." 

It was decided that Dr. and Mrs. Johnson 
should go to Marquette, on Lake Superior, for 
the winter, and a small church being at that time 
without a pastor, he was invited to supply the 
pulpit. The change from the smoky at- 
mosphere of Pittsburgh to the absolutely 
pure, clear, and bracing air of Lake Su- 
perior was most beneficial to both the preacher 
and his wife. Undoubtedly it was the principal 
cause of prolonging Mrs. Johnson's most valu- 
able life for the many years in which they were 
subsequently enabled to live together. To Dr. 
Johnson it was a great tonic also. He wrote 
most enthusiastically of it. " Come up here and 
snuff this bracing air," he wrote. " It is more 
Superior than the Lake — grammar to the con- 
trary notwithstanding. I have been out in it, 
this morning, taking a lung-bath. Whew ! Two 
or three good draughts of it fairly lift one off 
the earth, making his feet like hinds' feet. It 
gives lightness and buoyancy to the frame, just 
as a joy does to the spirit. To a denizen of 
sooty Pittsburgh, who has been a dweller there 
in the midst of the cloud, and who has just come 
out of its blackness of darkness, this new at- 
mosphere is especially an exhilaration and he 
goes rollicking in it with infinite zest." Later 



TROY— PITTSBURGH— MARQUETTE 45 



on he wrote of the deepening of religious interest 
there to his great joy. He loved nothing so 
much as a genuine spiritual awakening. He 
flung himself into this movement with the great- 
est ardor. " Now," he writes, " religion is the 
topic of conversation everywhere. On the 
streets, across the counters, and in the work- 
shops and in the drinking saloons words are ex- 
changed about the way to be saved. Even as 
at Ephesus, ' the Name of the Lord is magni- 
fied,' and mightily grows the word of God and 
prevails. Public hops go begging for patronage. 
The Presbyterian Church is crowded every night. 
The Baptists and the Methodists are equal 
sharers in the great blessing. Young men, — and 
the village swarms with them, — are standing 
up for Jesus. Strong men are bowed down and 
led of God like little children. Mad men who have 
fought against God and found out their shame, 
are sitting at the feet of Jesus., clothed and in 
their right mind. Professional and business men 
have sought and found the Kingdom of Heaven. 
There is a solemn awe in our public assemblies. 
In the hushed stillness, it seems as if blinded 
sinners have caught the sound of the footfall of 
Jesus of Nazareth passing by, and have cried out 
to Him, and He has stood still and bidden them 
come to him, and they have received their sight." 

He wrote to me also of the joy that filled his 
soul. He would go down on the shore of the 
Lake for solitude and prayer and praise. He 



46 HERRICK JOHNSON 



walked that shore in a sort of ecstasy, going over 
in his mind the line of his thought for the even- 
ing service and swinging his arms and shouting 
his praise. It was only a short time before this 
that the now most familiar hymn, " He leadeth 
me, O blessed thought/' had appeared, and dur- 
ing the great revival of 1857 it was taken up 
and sung throughout the whole land. Dr. John- 
son greatly loved it. He would go up and down 
the Lake shores, with only the great waters list- 
ening, and sing it at the top of his voice. Those 
were days of rapture, and he gave to his people 
at night the blessing that filled his soul those 
days by the great waters. Later on (in March) 
he wrote : " The religious interest commenced 
just prior to the Week of Prayer and has been 
sustained with great power ever since. Yester- 
day we celebrated the Sacrament of the Supper, 
and seventy-eight stood before the altar, to make 
public profession of their faith and dedicate 
themselves to God. It was a scene not often 
to be witnessed, and never to be forgotten." 

Shortly after this Dr. Johnson received a unan- 
imous call from the First Church of Philadel- 
phia, for so many years the scene of the honored 
and fruitful ministry of the Rev. Albert Barnes. 
Mr. Barnes was himself deeply interested in Dr. 
Johnson's accepting the call, which we shall con- 
sider in a later chapter. But while waiting at Mar- 
quette through the beautiful summer weather, 
a great fire, for so small a city, consumed among 



TROY— PITTSBURGH— MARQUETTE 47 



many other treasures all Dr. Johnson's sermons, 
all his MSS. of college and theological seminary 
notes, all his prize essays in college — in fine, 
everything. Thus he stood facing the responsi- 
bilities of a new parish in a great city, with 
none of the material which had accumulated in 
his active ministry to help him along. 
Here, too, he showed his virile manhood. 
He was not a whiner. He faced it as 
a call from God. In addressing a meeting of 
members of the Y.M.C.A. at Marquette, who 
had lost their building, he most urgently called 
upon them to meet their misfortunes bravely, 
and be prepared to make sacrifices, and to put up 
an edifice greatly in advance of the old one. He 
began his new work as successor of the Rev. 
Albert Barnes in the First Presbyterian Church 
of Philadelphia, June, 1868. 



Ill 



PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 

"Whose high endeavors are an inward light 
That makes the path before him always bright? 

More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure 
As tempted more, more able to endure 
As more exposed to suffering and distress, 
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness. 

But who if he be called upon to face 

Some awful moment, to which Heaven has joined 

Great issues, good or bad, for human kind, 

Is happy as a lover, and attired 

With sudden brightness, like a man inspired; 

And through the heat of conflict, keeps the law 

In calmness made and sees what he foresaw; 

Or if an unexpected call succeed, 

Come when it will, is equal to the need." 

— Wordsworth. 

IT will help us to see Herrick Johnson more 
clearly if we note him on the threshold of 
his larger field, particularly as an active 
promoter of the work of the Presbyterian 
Church as a great whole, in the union between 
the O. S. and the N. S. Churches, which took 
place in 1869. Many things had contributed to 
his very decided growth. His work among the 
sick and wounded soldiers in the Christian Com- 
48 



PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 



49 



mission Hospitals, his intense patriotism, his 
deep anxiety over the serious illness of his be- 
loved wife, his sorrowful experience in tearing 
himself away from the very dear church at 
Pittsburgh on account of her health ; his great 
enjoyment of the air and scenery of Lake Supe- 
rior ; his rich experience of the unique revival 
in the little church at Marquette ; the loss of all 
his MSS. by lire, which brought him to the heroic 
acceptance of a most trying providence just as 
he was about to take up a new work in the great 
city of Philadelphia., were all wrought into 
the very fibre of his manhood, and helped to 
make him a more sympathetic man, a broader 
man, a man of clearer vision, a more conse- 
crated man. and a man of larger liberty, as well 
as to specially fit him for a wider sphere of 
usefulness in the great Lmited Presbyterian 
Church. 

This was most noticeable in the active debates 
in the Synod and in the General Assembly, by his 
hearty and enthusiastic advocacy of the Union of 
the two Assemblies — the O. S. and the N. S. 
He faced the opposition to it very vigorously. 
He vehemently insisted that there must be no 
surrender of such liberty in interpreting the 
standards as the New School Presbyterian 
Church had enjoyed. One of the religious 
papers, in reference to the debate on the Basis of 
Union in the Xew School Assembly, stated that 
" Dr. Johnson's earnest plea for liberty came 



50 HERRICK JOHNSON 



with all the more force because of his assent to 
the imputation of being Old School in Theology. 
Most fervently did our hearts go with him when 
he exclaimed : " Perish the union if such free- 
dom is sacrificed to obtain it." In the same 
address he said, " There are differences between 
the Old School and the New School. They do 
really exist. And they ought to be recognized 
and acknowledged. To my mind they are not 
differences that justify the continued separation 
of the two great branches of the Presbyterian 
Church. I confidently believe that they are con- 
sistent with a hearty and harmonious union. 
Perhaps they could not be better expressed than 
in the words so happily used by Dr. Adams 
yesterday, in his address to the other Assembly 
as the delegate from this body. ' You said that 
you are the conservators of orthodoxy — we the 
conservators of liberty.' Now in the proposed 
Reunion on the Basis as presented, is it expected 
that the Old School are to yield their conserva- 
tion of orthodoxy ? No ! Are we to yield our 
conservation of liberty ? No ! Perish the union 
rather than that. God forbid the union forever 
rather than that. 

" A liberty within the limits of sound Calvinism, 
a liberty always enjoyed in the body, and exer- 
cised to-day fully as it was twenty years ago, it 
is neither our wish nor our purpose to surrender. 
Let it be distinctly understood. There should 
be no misapprehension in regard to the matter. 



PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 



51 



Let it go forth to the other Branch of the Church 
and to the world. Xot a dozen votes in this 
Assembly, not a half-dozen Presbyteries in our 
whole connection would favor this Basis of Re- 
union, if its acceptance and adoption were thought 
to involve the giving up of this liberty. Such 
liberty, e.g., as recognizes and freely allows those 
views in theology that are held by Albert Barnes. 
Albert Barnes ! revered, honored, beloved, rip- 
ened now to a golden completeness, ready to go 
to his grave in a full age like as a shock of corn 
cometh in, in its season, and ever presenting him- 
self to my thoughts as of all men in the world, 
the guileless man. Our brethren take us as we 
are, we in like manner take them. Their ortho- 
doxy is to put no clamps upon our hitherto 
enjoyed liberty. Our exercise of liberty is not 
to contaminate, nor pervert, nor in any way im- 
pair their orthodoxy. Liberty and orthodoxy 
meet together. Liberty and orthodoxy kiss each 
other. Henceforth they are to live in the same 
house, to sit at the same table, to worship at 
the same altars, to work in the same groves, to 
evangelize through the same organization. 
Henceforth they are to go hand in hand in 
mutual affection, fidelity, and trust. I thank God 
for it.*' " And let it be the fervent, earnest, 
constant prayer of all hearts that we go forth 
for our country's and the world's evangelization. 
One church, banded and bonded and welded 
together, holding the Cross, held by the Cross, 



52 HERRICK JOHNSON 



irradiated by the glories of it, stirred by the 
inspirations of it, our hearts swelling with the 
memories of it, and the outreach of that an- 
guished heart of love that broke on Calvary, 
when Jesus with outstretched arms embraced a 
dying world." 

In the mean time while all this discussion was 
going on, and committees were meeting, Dr. 
Johnson was intensely interested in the develop- 
ment of his field in the First Church. It was a 
great historic church and had been distinguished, 
for the thirty-seven years previous to his coming, 
by the presence in the pastorate of the distin- 
guished Rev. Albert Barnes, whose annotation of 
various parts of Scripture, called Barnes* Notes, 
had a very wide circulation, more than a mil- 
lion copies being sold before the last revised 
edition was issued in 1872. These gave the 
author great eminence, together with the fact 
that he was tried for heresy on account of cer- 
tain passages in his commentary on the Epistle to 
the Romans and acquitted. " He was leader 
of the New School Presbyterians when soon after 
his trial a definitive rupture occurred in the 
denomination." It was undoubtedly not only an 
interesting fact that his colleague years after- 
ward, Dr. Johnson, was one of the foremost 
leaders to reunite these two bodies, but it was, 
as we know, a peculiar joy to him to serve Mr. 
Barnes and the United Church in this way. 
While it was a church of a great history, the poor 



PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 53 



health of Mr. Barnes and his failing eyesight and 
the great change in the character of the popu- 
lation immediately surrounding the church, had 
caused a number of problems, as to its future. 
It had become a " downtown church." But 
quite a large number of its members, devotedly 
attached to Mr. Barnes and to the church, either 
refused to move away from its surroundings, or 
in moving away, still retained their membership 
in the old church. 

It was to the upbuilding of this old and 
greatly honored church that Dr. Johnson de- 
voted his best energies, recognizing at the same 
time the fact that his being the pastor of that 
church called for his co-operation with others in 
the great work opening before the whole Pres- 
byterian Church of the country. He wrote al- 
most constantly for the religious press. As 
chairman of the Synods Committee on Home 
Missions, he was so surprised and shocked at the 
story told by the statistical records as to the re- 
sponse of the churches in the Synod to the 
call of Home Missions, that his report to the 
Synod thrilled it, and roused the Presbyterians 
of the state. He declared that the " figures 
were startling and as shameful as they were 
startling." It shows the tact with which Dr. 
Johnson presented the humiliating condition of 
the interests of Home Missions, that instead of 
arousing antagonism there was a hearty and 
general acknowledgment of delinquency. He 



54 HERRICK JOHNSON 



espoused most enthusiastically the Y.M.C.A. 
movement in the city. He called the city's at- 
tention to the week of prayer, then near at hand. 
He began a series of sermons to young men, 
especially on Temperance and Amusements. 
There was a great interest developed in his 
churches at the time of, and after, the Week of 
Prayer. He held services every night. At the 
autumn communion twenty-four new members 
united with the church, four on profession of 
faith, and twenty by letter. On the first com- 
munion after the Week of Prayer, forty- 
three persons united with the church, thirty- 
three by profession and ten by letter. " No such 
ingathering had taken place in this church for 
more than a quarter of a century." 

Then came the great meeting of the General 
Assembly at the Church of the Covenant in New 
York City with a corresponding meeting of the 
Old School Branch of the Church at the Brick 
Church, with the one burning question of the 
" Union " before both Assemblies ; and after 
those speeches in its advocacy uttered by Dr. 
Johnson, to which I have already referred and 
from which I have quoted, The Basis for Union 
was adopted by both Assemblies and sent out by 
them to the Presbyteries for ratification, with the 
well-known and glorious result. After union 
was a foregone conclusion, Dr. Johnson wrote a 
rousing article on "After Reunion — What?" 
Everything that he wrote and said was rousing 



PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 55 



and ringing, for all his powers were profoundly 
quickened for the work in hand. 

In this article he wrote : " It has been claimed 
to be the ushering in of a new era. Shall it 
be seen that we have been imitating the example 
of some author who thunders only in the index? 
Is our apparent zeal for the glory of God to 
have the * lame and impotent ' conclusion of a 
great zeal for the glory of denominationalism ? 
Or is there to issue out of reunion that which 
shall be a justification of our joy at its coming, 
and the fulfilment of the best prophecy on record 
of its beneficent results? To be content with 
making just such record of increase and efficiency 
of toil and triumph united as we made apart, 
will not answer. Something better and higher 
and grander is demanded of us. The United 
Church must be what the two branches of the 
Church never were — in life, in labor, in liberality. 
The old standards of Christian giving must be 
lifted away from their present altitude and set 
furlongs higher in the scale of obligation. The 
old grooves of Christian effort must give way 
to others in and through which there may be 
room for the play and sweep of greatly vitalized 
and enlarged activities ; while our life — our 
spiritual life with God and in God — must be 
more vivid and intensely real. It must be closer 
and deeper, increasing the clearness of our con- 
ception and the firmness of our grasp, and the 
fervor of our love of things spiritual. First of all 



56 HERRICK JOHNSON 



therefore, paramount to every other thing we 
have to do, vital, in order to the gathering of 
such fruit of Union as may be, and ought to be, 
brought forth to the glory of God, everywhere 
throughout our entire borders, by the least and 
the greatest, by every individual member of our 
communion, there should be renewed commit- 
ment and consecration to Christ." Undoubtedly 
many noble souls felt in the same way about the 
spirit and purpose of the United Church, for its 
record since the Union has been very high, and 
has showed the Church nobly responsive to the 
meaning of the Divine Call. 

I have quoted quite largely from Dr. Johnson's 
article " After Reunion — What ? " in order to 
show the man and to make it plain how gener- 
ously and responsively his soul leaped to the 
thought of the glorious possibilities in that United 
Church. As if he were speaking through a 
trumpet, he said, " Let pastors and people be 
urged to closet themselves with God, so that we 
shall not only be kept from the pride of Babel or 
Babylon builders, but brought into such close 
alliance with the Master, and in such close sym- 
pathy with His out-reaching and world-embrac- 
ing Spirit as our Church has never known." 

The two General Assemblies that had accepted 
The Basis for Union adjourned, with the ratifi- 
cation by the Presbyteries of both Branches to 
meet in Pittsburgh November 10, and formally 
unite. On that memorable day the Old School 



PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 57 



body, emerging from the First Presbyterian 
Church, met the New School body, which had 
marched from the Third Presbyterian Church, 
and locking arms two by two, an Old School man 
and a New School man, in a procession of more 
than a thousand, they moved amid the cheers of a 
vast concourse of people through the streets, back 
to the Third Church, where as they filed into 
and settled themselves in its great audience room, 
the Moderator gave out the grand old hymn, 
" All hail the power of Jesus' Name." There was 
hardly a dry eye in all that vast congregation. 
The United Church then adjourned to hold its 
first Assembly in May, 1870, in the historic First 
Church of Philadelphia; and it must have been 
particularly interesting and gratifying to Dr. 
Johnson, that the formal Union took place in his 
old church in Pittsburgh, and the First Assembly 
in his church in Philadelphia. He was the 
Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements for 
the reception and carrying on of the Assembly, 
and showed in this office that he had as much 
business and executive ability as he had power 
in the pulpit and influence in the Assemblies. 
The patience, self-control, and good cheer with 
which he met all the exacting duties of his posi- 
tion won for him the admiration of the city as 
well as the Assembly. " Although the Assembly 
was more than double the size of ordinary As- 
semblies, every arrangement was most carefully 
and systematically made by Dr. Johnson and his 



58 HERRICK JOHNSON 



able Committee of Arrangements. No other 
Assembly was ever better cared for in advance. 
Dr. Johnson has won golden opinion from ail 
for his patience, activity, and his courtesy, but 
few can ever know how much of his habitual 
nervous force has been expended in caring for 
this Assembly." 

This year was full of intense activities. Dr. 
Johnson preached a series of notable sermons 
from which ultimately grew his very vigorous 
and attractive book, Christianity's Challenge, 
followed by a very able address at the Anniver- 
sary of Philadelphia's Bible Society. Then a 
memorial sermon at the death of his great prede- 
cessor — Albert Barnes. Then an address before 
the New York Association of Sunday School 
Teachers. " Dr. Johnson evidently impressed his 
audience with the belief that they were listening 
not only to one of the first thinkers on this great 
subject in this or any country, but to one of the 
truly spiritual divines of the day." Then came a 
protracted discussion on the wine question in 
which he took the ground that there were two 
kinds of wine referred to in the Scriptures — a 
sweet and harmless drink, and a fermented and 
alcoholic one — and urging the Christ could not 
have made nor used the latter. There was much 
earnest argument, not in the long run productive 
of the greatest good to the Temperance cause, 
and ultimately Dr. Johnson withdrew his claim, 
with characteristic honesty. Then came the 



PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 59 



sixth Anniversary of the National Temperance 
Society, addressed by Hon. Wm. E. Dodge, Dr. 
T. L. Cuyler, Dr. T. De Witt Talmage, and Dr. 
Johnson. 

Then came the commencement at Hamilton 
College, where Dr. Johnson was most active, and 
the report of the Committee (of which Dr. John- 
son was chairman) on the New Hymn Book. 
It was attacked of course, — no New Hymn 
Book can escape that, — and the attack and criti- 
cism had to be reviewed and answered by Dr. 
Johnson, which in the main was done most 
satisfactorily, and the New Hymn Book re- 
ceived the General Assembly's endorsement. 
But the year had been such a strain upon his 
nervous force, that his church insisted upon his 
taking a long vacation, in Europe, in the spring 
of 1872. The Evangelist made the accompany- 
ing reference to his going, " We have much 
satisfaction springing from a sense of fitness 
of things, in the announcement that the Pastor 
of the First Presbyterian Church of Phila- 
delphia, Rev. Herrick Johnson, D.D., is about 
to take a six months' respite in Europe, and this 
at the unanimous wish of his warmly attached 
people/' Entering that field just before the de- 
struction by fire at Marquette of all his sermons 
and MSS, "he succeeded to the pulpit of the 
man he perhaps most venerated in all the Church, 
and whose fame for ability and cultured resources 
was world-wide. The field was certainly no 



60 HERRICK JOHNSON 



sinecure; it never had been such; and now for 
obvious reasons, its demands as a downtown 
church with more than an uptown prestige were 
greater than ever before upon him who should 
adequately fill its pulpit and its pews, and at the 
same time make good the large place of Mr. 
Barnes in the councils of the Church, and at a 
period of peculiarly delicate readjustments. 

" That Dr. Johnson has succeeded in abundantly 
satisfying and largely increasing his congregation 
and membership in spite of his pulpit and library 
losses, and his aptitude for outside labor of all 
sorts, incident to a laborious committeeman or a 
vigorous pen and ink tilt with the ex-President 
of Princeton on the wine question is just cause 
for congratulation and must be ascribed to ex- 
cellent qualities of endurance, and no mistaken 
repute for power in the pulpit. He has succeeded 
in a great work and we are sure that the prayer 
of his people and of a host of friends throughout 
the Church will attend him and his wife as they 
now voyage from our shores in company with 
Dr. Cuyler in the good steamer China." 

It was my pleasure to sail the same summer, 
Dr. and Mrs. Johnson not knowing when they 
sailed (April 29, 1872) that I was soon to follow 
them. I met Dr. Cuyler in London, but found it 
very difficult to cross Dr. Johnson's divergent 
paths, and at the same time follow out my plan. 
He wrote me from Innspruck : " How pleased and 
blest was I, and I am proving it by improving 



PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 61 



the first opportunity to let you know of our 
movements. Your letter reached me this morn- 
ing just as we are starting from Innspruck on 
our tour through Switzerland and the Tyrol. We 
expect to be in Zermatt about the 20th of July, 
passing along from here through the Ober- 
Engadine to the Juli^r Pass, seeing something of 
the Splugen, and its celebrated Via Mala, down 
to Regantz and so on to Andermatt, St. Gothard, 
and Furca. From Zermatt we now expect to 
make the pass of St. Theodule and the Via 
Aosta and Courmayeur around Mt. Blanc to 
Chamounix, and over Tete Noir to Martigny, 
then to Interlaken by the Gemmi Pass and to 
Lucerne and to Brientz. We may have to change 
our plans, but in any event I think we shall be in 
Interlaken and Lucerne somewhere about 
August 1st. Do meet us if possible. In great 
haste but in great affection, Herrick." 

On receipt of this letter I planned to meet him 
and Mrs. Johnson at Interlaken. In the mean- 
time, meeting Mr. and Mrs. F. Gridley of Buf- 
falo and their son Charlie and Rev. Fred Ken- 
dall (son of the Rev. Dr. Kendall of the Home 
Board), we joined forces for a tour through a 
part of Switzerland. All of the men of this 
party were graduates of Hamilton College and 
members of Alpha Delta Phi. The younger men 
were on the qui vlve to run across their college 
friend, the Rev. Maurice Edwards, for so many 
years pastor of one of the most prosperous Pres- 



62 HERRICK JOHNSON 



byterian churches of St. Paul, Minn. Tourists 
will understand how the faces of every group 
passed were scanned for friends. We had 
reached the quaint and lonely Grimsel Hospice 
and were in our rooms preparing for dinner, 
when I heard the college men of my party yell- 
ing like mad, and pounding away at the man they 
were looking for — Maurice Edwards, who had 
suddenly appeared in the corridor. As I stepped 
out from my room, towel in hand, and delighted 
with their joy, I heard a voice cry out of the 
dark corridor, " Hello, there's Charlie Rob ! " 
It was Herrick, who was taking a pedestrian 
tour with Edwards from Monte Rosa, by Grim- 
sel Hospice, and had stopped there just to rest 
for an hour. It was now his and my turn to yell 
as only college boys know how to, and to pound 
each other. Only those who have been through 
a similar experience can imagine our delight. 
We accompanied Johnson and Edwards for 
quite a little way up the zigzag path, singing 
our old familiar college songs and especially our 
Alpha Delta Phi songs, and then parted to meet 
in Interlaken. 

Both parties united at Interlaken, putting up 
at the Hotel des Alpes. We agreed to take 
turns in ordering the meals, and we furbished 
up our long-forgotten college French (poor at 
the best), and the waiters must have gone about 
wild over our attempts. I remember Dr. John- 
son said to a waiter: " Do you speak English?" 



PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 6S 



" No English." " Bring us some bread, then." 
Mr. Fred Gridley, who had been longer from 
his college French than the rest of us, in his 
banking business at Buffalo, having made a 
most elaborate attempt to order a dinner for our 
party, came in at the appointed time and, seeing 
that the table was not yet spread, said, " Hello ! 
Dinner n'est par ready, eh?" Dr. Maurice Ed- 
wards and myself are the only ones now left of 
that merry, happy party. I have no doubt but 
that he recalls the fun, the fellowship, the as- 
sociations, and the tours with a very warm heart. 
It was a summer never to be forgotten. 

Dr. and Mrs. Johnson reached their home in 
Philadelphia after six months' absence, in- 
vigorated and greatly improved in health. He 
found the Alpine climbing afforded him the best 
physical recuperation. Among the first things 
which he took up as he resumed his public duties 
was the Board of Education, to help students 
for the ministry, who had no means or insuffi- 
cient means to pursue their long course of at 
least seven years. Some of the religious papers 
attacked the whole system of furnishing aid to 
poor students. Here is some of their argument 
raised against it: "If they are of the right 
metal, such stuff as the Church needs for lead- 
ership, they will get through." " Yes," Dr. 
Johnson replied, " but have we a right to compel 
them to get through at the expense of precious 
years, and often by wear and strain and self- 



64 HERRICK JOHNSON 



denial, pinching, starving, killing out of them 
the very spring and buoyancy of spirit with 
which they ought to come bounding to their 
work? It is all very well to talk about the 
' discipline ' of this thing. But there isn't a 
father in this land who would compel his son 
wholly to work his way through college, if he 
had the means to help. And is the Church to 
repeat the tyranny of the old Egyptian task- 
masters ? Will she expect bricks without straw ? 
Shall we urge the indifferent and unfit quality 
of the Board's Candidates and say they are a 
company of ne'er-do-wells? Probably there is 
no impression more prevalent in certain quar- 
ters. There certainly is none more utterly and 
mischievously erroneous. Many of the most 
widely influential and gifted ministers of our 
Church were assisted in their course of educa- 
tion. Cavilling, carping sceptics concerning this 
matter would be astonished at their roll-call." 

Dr. Johnson was thoroughly aroused by these 
attacks upon the Board of Education, and he 
threw himself into the thick of the fight, to de- 
fend and strengthen this cause. There is no 
doubt but that the present unquestioned hold 
which this Board of Education has to-day on 
the heart of the Church is the fine fruit of Dr. 
Johnson's generous, spirited, and very able re- 
ply to charges made against the very system. 
He kept it up, with blow after blow, until he 
was the master of the field. It is due to his 



PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1 874 65 



priceless memory that this should be thoroughly 
understood. 

In looking over the minutes and report of the 
General Assemblies for 1873 and 1S74. one can- 
not help noting with admiration the practical 
quality of Dr. Johnson's addresses, which are at 
this time and further on very frequent. He had 
the mind of a business man as well as that of a 
great preacher. He was possessed of broad sym- 
pathies, and in all his many and impressive 
speeches took the wide and generous side. He 
believed that true soundness in the faith was 
fairly conditioned on such liberty as he fought for 
in coming into the United Church. 

He might have been narrowly sectarian had it 
not been for his fair-mindedness and his great 
heart. We used to call him (; Greatheart." 
Here is a letter to me from him. written soon 
after his and Mrs. Johnson's return from that 
European trip : 

" Yes, it was a disappointment not to meet you 
again at Interlaken. I was gone ten days on 
that grand trip, a part of which was glorious 
and inspiring beyond all description. The last 
day was the superbest of all when I came di- 
rectly across the snow and ice-fields over the 
Bernese Ober-land. descending by Schmadribach 
Falls, at the upper end of Lauterbrunnen Val- 
ley. If I could have had you along! Maurice 
Edwards had left me. and I was alone with. 



66 HERRICK JOHNSON 

guide and porter, roped together, steps cut in ice, 
etc., etc. My people seem to think it would pay to 
send me abroad every year. I have been giving 
them ' Looks Abroad ' Sabbath evenings ; 
'France and Her Falsehood of Extremes/ 
' Germany and the Old Catholic Movement/ 
1 Switzerland and the Lessons of Her Everlast- 
ing Mountains/ ' England and Her Establish- 
ment/ ' The Sea and Its Lessons.' They have 
asked me to repeat the course, to publish it in 
book form, and to do this or that most foolish 
thing. I consented by very special and wide 
request to repeat the sermon on Switzerland, as 
a great many did not hear it on its first delivery, 
who were especially desirous of listening to that 
particular sermon. I, too, am very much better 
than when we first landed, and my wife has been 
very much improved also. Work abounds, 
duties multiply. The week of prayer brought 
its special anxieties, no great cloud gathers over 
us. But we continue some services. How about 
Troy? You're a brave fellow to go extemporiz- 
ing. I'm a coward and daren't. Love to all 
from us both. Affectionately, 

" Herrick/' 

He was put in charge of the Westminster 
series of Sunday school lessons. He was the 
President of the Board of Education, and Chair- 
man of the Presbyterial Committee on Foreign 
Missions, and gave in the summer of 1873 at 



PHILADELPHIA, 1868-1874 67 



the Hamilton College commencement a notable 
address on " The Priceless Value of American 
Citizenship." But the strain upon him had be- 
come altogether too great. That early summer 
while I was visiting him at Philadelphia, I 
referred to the various calls he had been getting 
from Dr. Eells' church in Brooklyn, from the 
First Church of Syracuse, etc., but he was not 
ready to accept any of them. He confessed to 
being very much broken by overwork. He felt 
that his strength was failing and that he dare 
not stay where he was, and owned that the in- 
vitation from Auburn Theological Seminary to 
the Chair of Homiletics and Sacred Rhetoric 
presented itself very attractively in its oppor- 
tunity for quiet and rest, and that he would 
probably go there. He loved Auburn; it was 
still the home of his wife's family, and the whole 
city loved him and would give him a proud and 
glad welcome. 



IV 



AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, 
1874-1880 

" 'I am the True Vine/ said our Lord, ' and Ye, 
My Brethren, are t'ie Branches ; ' and that Vine, 
Then first uplifted in its place, and hung 
With its first purple grapes, since then has grown, 
Until its green leaves gladden half the world, 
And from its countless clusters rivers flow 
For healing of the nations, and its boughs 
Innumerable stretch through all the earth, 
Ever increasing, ever each entwined 
With each, all living from the Central Heart. 
And you and I, my brethren, live and grow, 
Branches of that immortal human Stem." 

— H. E. Hamilton King. 

HERRICK JOHNSON had never tried 
teaching, but he had the teacher's in- 
stinct, contact with a lot of young 
men looking forward to the gospel ministry 
specially appealing to him. And, turning from 
the pressure and fever of city life, he was 
in just the condition to feel strongly the draw- 
ing of that special work. Nor was he mistaken. 
It was the open door to the great work of his 
life. For over thirty years from that time he 
was an inspiration to hundreds of splendid 
68 



AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 69 



young men, who in their enthusiasm, and with- 
out at all disparaging other professors, used to 
speak of him with great affection. Of course it 
was a hard pull to leave his church in Phila- 
delphia. The people loved him in all the relations 
which he held toward them and were very proud 
of him, and he most reluctantly yielded to his 
profound conviction that it was the Hand of God 
leading him to Auburn. That was many years 
ago, and a very large part of the church which 
held so tenaciously upon him has gone to the 
Heavenly land. But one of his devoted friends 
there is still living, Mr. Abraham R. Perkins, of 
Germantown, Philadelphia, and he writes me: 
" From 1868, when Dr. Johnson came to us, 
he was my very dear friend, and I miss him 
daily ; he was an inspiration in earlier days, and 
a joy to be with always." 

Of course there was no time to hang heavy 
in his new field, all his lectures on Homiletics 
and Rhetoric having to be newly written. But 
the quiet of the Auburn life in which to carry 
on all this writing was a great relief. He could 
never be idle. Every hour was filled. Then the 
fellowship with the students, the contact with 
their fresh young life, just at that time of his 
own middle life, when many men allow them- 
selves to feel old, brought back the old days of 
joyful vigor and youth. All this was so entirely 
new as to furnish the radical change in feeling 
and association which he needed, so that while 



70 HERRICK JOHNSON 



he worked hard, he felt it to be grandly new and 
inspiring. But then Herrick Johnson never came 
to the time when life ceased to be " grand " and 
" new " and " inspiring." 

Through the generosity of a number of his 
friends, mainly in Philadelphia, a very attractive 
and commodious house for the new Professor 
and Mrs. Johnson was erected. It was the habit 
of the Faculty of Auburn Seminary to be hos- 
pitable, and Dr. and Mrs. Johnson were pre- 
eminently so. They made their beautiful home 
most delightful to the young men. That was a 
distinguishing feature of the more than thirty 
years of their seminary life. 

Auburn Seminary had always held a unique 
position among the theological seminaries of the 
country. Such men as Richards, and Mills, and 
Hall, and Huntington, and Condit, and Hopkins, 
and Shedd had been among the professors in its 
earlier history. It had at that time on the roll 
of its Alumni the names of some of the fore- 
most men in the Church, and in some of the fore- 
most positions of trust and responsibility. Over 
two hundred of its graduates were at that time 
in the pulpits of the four or five Synods of the 
Empire State. Its buildings for the accommo- 
dations of its students are unsurpassed by any 
in the land. 

On the occasion of Dr. Johnson's installation 
into the Chair of Homiletics and Sacred Rhetoric, 
the prayer of inauguration was offered by the 




Dr. Herrick Johnson in Middle Life. 



AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 71 



Rev. J. B. Condit, D.D., the address to the newly 
inaugurated professor delivered by the Presi- 
dent of Hamilton College, S. G. Brown, D.D., 
LL.D., and the welcome given by Rev. 
Thomas C. Strong, D.D., President of the 
Board of Commissioners. Then came the In- 
augural Address by Dr. Johnson. I would like 
to give it in full, but the limits of this little 
book forbid that, but I cannot refrain from 
quoting his closing words : " Its supreme aim, 
its subject-matter, its ruling spirit, its unearthly 
sanctions, its cooperating agent — these are some 
of the great and mighty ideas which stand in- 
dissolubly connected with the work of preach- 
ing and which uplift and glorify the homiletic 
art, and are fitted to arouse a lofty enthusi- 
asm in its prosecution. What are mortal 
daubings on canvas when painting can be done 
with eternity for a background ; what are Thor- 
waldsen's or Angelo's chiselings in marble, when 
sculptured souls may be the immortal product of 
our toil? What is it to make poems and ora- 
tions, to kindle only natural emotions, when ser- 
mons may be made which shall put a new song 
on the lips of immortal men to be sung forever? 

" Surely it is a shame to students of God's 
mysteries if they grow not in love with their 
homiletic toil. Men pursue their secular arts. 
They go to the preparation of marble and can- 
vas and poem with hearts beating all aglow with 
enthusiasm, fired with a passion for their work. 



72 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Ought not this divinest of art, which it is the 
special province of the Chair of Sacred Rhetoric 
to teach, to waken a grander enthusiasm and to 
possess with a more consuming zeal? Do I 
magnify my office? Be it freely acknowledged. 
God grant that I may magnify it by future deed 
as well as by present speech. I come to the 
Chair of Sacred Rhetoric in this institution with 
the profound conviction that what the pulpit 
of our day most needs is just this: not better 
theologians, not greater learning, not vaster 
stores of information, but the art of using what 
it already possesses. If the element of enthusi- 
asm could be put into the preparation and de- 
livery of sermons all over the land, in thousands 
of instances the effect would be like a resurrec- 
tion of the dead. The art of preaching has been 
sadly and widely ignored and forgotten in a too 
exclusive and absorbed attention to the subject- 
matter. The structural work of sermonizing, 
the rhetorical form, the adaptation in methods 
and dress of thought to the best efforts have 
far too little heed, while sermons are far too 
often delivered with a sameness and slovenli- 
ness, and utter indifference to oratorical excel- 
lence scarcely befitting the common talk of the 
street. 

" The pulpit wants (is it extravagant to say 
it?) above all else enthusiastic homiletes, men 
not only consecrated to the general work of the 
ministry, but fired with a passion for the art of 



AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 73 



preaching, filled with a holy zeal for effective 
sermonizing, men who shall be more earnestly 
and sacredly ambitious to have the best methods 
of preaching and to know how to use them so 
as to exert power over men, and win prizes in 
the arena where souls may be won, than the old 
Grecians were to excel as athletes and win prizes 
in the ancient games. May God help us, here in 
this seminary, to make such men." To this 
work Dr. Johnson gave the rest of his life (over 
thirty years) with an enthusiasm and devotion 
that never faltered. 

In looking over the record of his first year in 
Auburn, one has to smile at the hope felt by 
him, of securing more quiet and ease. Aside 
from his having to prepare at least three new 
lectures a week in Homiletics, and to devote 
time to drilling the students in " Prayer Meet- 
ing Talks " and listening to a sermon from each 
one of the Senior Class in turn every week, and 
giving a most thorough and elaborate criticism, 
in every case, he preached in the surrounding 
cities — Utica, Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo, and 
Rochester. He addressed the Woman's Tem- 
perance Society. He attended the General As- 
sembly and entered very earnestly and elabo- 
rately into its discussions, especially the theme 
which at that time was at the front — " Consoli- 
dation." Dr. Johnson was on a committee which, 
all but himself, favored the movement to con- 
solidate the Boards in a mighty whole. He pre- 



74 HERRICK JOHNSON 



sented a minority report, opposing a wholesale 
movement to combine the Boards, and really 
secured the settlement of the question on the 
basis of his report, and which has given shape 
to the order and efficiency of the Boards ever 
since. 

Then came the Auburn Seminary commence- 
ment, where at that time the graduating class 
offered orations. The preparation of these and 
the drilling of the speakers were under the care 
of Dr. Johnson. Then came his Inauguration Ad- 
dress, to which I have already referred. Right 
after that Dr. Johnson preached in the First 
Church under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A., 
soon after he attended the commencement at 
Williams College, where the paper stated that 
he delivered a " masterly discourse before the 
Mills Society." During the summer months he 
supplied the Union Services in Hudson, N. Y. 
All this, with a number of articles written in 
answer to criticisms upon the " New Hymnal " 
(the work of a committee of which Dr. Johnson 
was chairman), and the constant work with his 
classes in the seminary made the year anything 
but quiet and restful, though he was very well 
and happy in his work. 

Dr. Johnson had become so much a part of 
the life of Auburn that there was hardly any- 
thing going on in its literary or religious life in 
which he was not invited to take a prominent 
part. He liked to identify himself with the 



AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 75 



pleasant social life of the city. His good nature, 
his humor, his dramatic ability, all lent a charm 
to any entertainment that his friends were en- 
gaged in. Just at that time there was a craze 
rife through the country for spelling bees, and 
the Opera House was crowded on such oc- 
casions. Dr. Johnson not only was there, but 
he also took a very prominent part — that of 
enunciator of the words to be spelled. There 
was great fun which he not only furthered, but 
greatly enjoyed. At the summer resorts which 
he was in the habit of visiting, he was the centre 
of the social life, joining most heartily in the 
charades, games, and tableaux, while he par- 
ticularly enjoyed the impromptu musicals. His 
dramatic talent, together with his facility in il- 
lustration, made his addresses to children 
charming. They were simply fascinated by him. 
It was only amusements that had sin in them 
which he opposed; clean fun he delighted in. 
He never would have preached as he did in 
Philadelphia, and especially in Chicago, against 
theatres, if the plays had been moral and elevat- 
ing. Pure comedy he would have greatly en- 
joyed. 

The great city churches could not let him 
alone. They felt that a man of his ability should 
be more in the centre of power. The Collegiate 
Church in New York, which had greatly enjoyed 
his summer supplies, enthusiastically called him 
with the offer of a very large salary. After 



76 HERRICK JOHNSON 



mature and prayerful consideration, he declined 
the call. The Collegiate Church repeated the 
call, but he found himself unwilling to go out 
of the bounds of the Presbyterian Church, to 
which he was much attached. Later the Clas- 
son Avenue Presbyterian Church, of Brooklyn 
(the church started by Dr. Joseph T. Duryea), 
called him. He was greatly drawn to that 
church, and considered the call very prayer- 
fully. He knew the joy of being a pastor. But 
it had been shown him that God had given him 
power to educate pastors. " His five years in 
Auburn had made this so evident to his brethren, 
that it could not fail to be evident to himself," 
and so he declined this call also, deciding to re- 
main at Auburn. A committee of some of the 
most prominent men of Brooklyn went up to 
Auburn and returned home without being able 
to induce him to reconsider his refusal to accept 
their call. He wrote me about it September 27, 
1878, as follows : 

" I am grateful to you for your words of 
warm appreciation and hearty sympathy. They 
have been helpful in the matter that has been 
before me. I was in New York on Friday and 
Saturday, September 13 and 14, seeking facts 
and judgments, and after several personal, and 
in some cases quite protracted, conferences, I 
came up to Albany, passed the Sabbath there, 
returned home on Monday, and on that day sent 



AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 77 



back my formal declination. They telegraphed 
on receipt of it, urging a reconsideration, but as 
no additional reasons were given, I replied by 
telegraph negatively. They then requested an- 
other interview at Albany last Saturday (the 
committee were here, at Auburn, in full force 
the week before) and I met them at noon at the 
' Delevan.' It was a long and precious, and 
painful interview. They were noble men, and 
they treated me nobly, and their whole presenta- 
tion of the case was honorable, urgent, and most 
affectionate. 

" I never had so great a trial of this kind in 
my life. But the call did not take on that im- 
perativeness, which I think a call should, to 
move a man from a place where he is already 
satisfied and useful. I could not see that it was 
my duty to go. I confess the balances seemed 
often even and the case doubtful. It was hard 
to decide where the greater usefulness might 
be possible. I gave the benefit of the doubt to 
Auburn, and reluctantly told the good brethren 
that I saw no reason for a change of decision. 
It was hard, Charlie. I don't want to go 
through such another trial very soon. But it 
has made me acquainted with some of the 
choicest spirits I ever met. Since the decision 
I have been resting in it, as of God in His 
Providence, and I do believe it to be right. 

" Yours very affectionately, 

" Herrick." 



78 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Almost immediately after having settled this 
question of the Brooklyn call, Dr. Johnson threw 
himself with an enthusiasm characteristic of him 
into the work of advancing very materially the 
interests of his beloved Alma Mater, Hamilton 
College. He plied the Evangelist with article 
after article, fairly burning with white heat 
with his intense love for the college. His first 
contribution was " Do the Living Church and 
the Living College Go Together ? " " Shall the 
College Be Christian?" followed with a strong 
article on " Shall the Presbyterian Church of the 
State of New York Have a College ? " Then 
another, " A College at Our Door," followed 
by an urgent contribution, " Our Splendid Op- 
portunity," and still another, " Our Smaller Col- 
leges." 

In the meantime he went to Philadelphia to 
pay an eloquent and exquisite tribute to the 
memory of Dr. E. R. Beadle. The correspond- 
ent of the Evangelist wrote of it : " The most 
prominent service in the Presbyterian pulpit on 
last Sabbath was the memorial discourse deliv- 
ered in the Second Presbyterian Church, Phila- 
delphia, by Dr. Herrick Johnson, of Auburn, 
N. Y., in commemoration of the life and 
services of the late Dr. E. R. Beadle, pastor for 
thirteen years of the Second Church. Dr. John- 
son came from Auburn at the request of the 
church, and, prompted by love for the memory 
of him with whom he had been intimately asso- 



AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 79 



ciated while they were pastors together in Phila- 
delphia. The sermon was a fine one, wrought 
out with great completeness, and formed an elo- 
quent loving tribute to the memory of his 
friend." Right after that came a call from the 
First Church of Utica, which he declined, lead- 
ing the Evangelist to say : " The papers say that 
Dr. Herrick Johnson has declined a call to the 
First Presbyterian Church of Utica. This will 
encourage all the churches that are after him, 
and have not yet been refused." 

But there came a call from the Fourth Church 
of Chicago, which at first he also declined, but 
which was renewed with arguments and reasons 
to which he had to pay such heed as led him 
finally to accept it. Perhaps nothing will more 
clearly present these reasons and their effect 
upon him than a letter which he wrote to me 
from Auburn April 9, 1880: 

" I have at last succumbed, as you doubtless 
have seen by the papers. The pressure has been 
persisting and augmenting, until I was brought 
face to face with considerations that clinched my 
conscience and made me feel the grip of an 
'ought.' It came to look as if I must go to 
Chicago, or fight against God. Doors of useful- 
ness are opened, through which I see limitless 
possibilities of power. I am offered a lecture- 
ship in the Seminary, which will be no draft of 
a serious nature, and in which I can go on giving 



80 HERRICK JOHNSON 



to students the cream of what I have been giving 
here. It will only be supplemental to the Chair 
of Sacred Rhetoric. The details of the depart- 
ment, the drill work, and much of the instruc- 
tion, will, of course, fall to the occupant of the 
chair. This arrangement is to continue only as 
I wish and to the extent of work I may find 
myself equal to. Then McCormick throws wide 
open the Interior, and says I may use it as I 
wish. Then there is our struggling University 
at Lake Forest to be placed on a broad stable 
foundation, and to be made the Presbyterian 
University of the whole vast interior of our 
country. Behind me, and assuring me of all 
sympathy and cooperation, will be the Fourth 
Church, possessing millions to-day, and humanly 
speaking certain of adding millions more to the 
wealth now held by its members. 

" The Church is now free from debt, is in the 
best position of Chicago, has no Presbyterian 
church within two miles of it, and is full of ac- 
tivity and alive with workers. Among the latter 
are some of the noblest women on the continent, 
according to the testimony of Mitchell. It is 
possible, of course, that I go to great trial, dis- 
appointment, strife of soul, and failure. No 
matter ! I never believed more fully that I was 
in the path of duty, and if not even my lowest 
and least hope is realized, I shall continue to feel 
that this was of God. If it is not to permit me 
to do some greater work for Him, then it may be 



AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 81 



to show me more of Himself, through the path 
of trial and by the way of cloud and storm. 
My blessed Katie goes with me, full of the same 
quiet belief. We have been singularly alike in 
our feeling about it all. We have both had other 
preferences. Personal tastes would have led us 
eastward, if we were to move at all. We both 
felt the first declination of this matter was right 
and yet we both had lingering doubts whether, 
after all, a mistake had not been made, when 
the pressure was renewed under entirely new 
conditions, and conclusion in favor of going 
was reached, we rested in it as of God. 

" You must cease not to pray for us — you and 
Clara. It is a trial to leave dear old Auburn, 
but the very reasons I had been accustomed to 
urge for staying were turned upon me as per- 
suasive to come to Chicago — Seminary and Col- 
lege pleading there and offering facilities for 
doing some things I could hardly hope to do 
here. Keep on loving your old friend, and re- 
member as you strike for Hamilton and Auburn, 
and the dear Lord above all, that in the interior 
of the continent somebody's heart boats in sym- 
pathy always. As ever, 

" Herrick." 

A correspondent for the Evangelist, writing 
from Auburn, said of his going to Chicago : " A 
great deal that is true and beautiful in life will 
go from us when Dr. and Mrs. Johnson leave 



82 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Auburn. It seemed so fitting that the gifted 
daughter of Mr. Hardenburg, himself a poet, 
should find a beautiful home on the very ground 
given by her honored father sixty years ago for 
the ' Theological Seminary of the Western Edu- 
cation Society/ 

" We hoped that the fair scion would take 
deep root in that genial soil, and that we might 
long ' sit under its shadow with great delight/ 
We know how well both Dr. and Mrs. Johnson 
have fulfilled their duty in the honorable posi- 
tion which they have occupied among us, and 
it is with great reluctance that we admit the 
thought that a more important and promising 
field of usefulness now opens before them." 
And Dr. S. M. Hopkins, giving the farewell ad- 
dress to the then graduating class, said of Dr. 
Johnson's going : " Long live the King, who 
goes from us to occupy a broad and noble field 
of usefulness in another part of the Church. We 
have kept him as long as we could keep so suc- 
cessful a pulpit orator, and a little longer, I 
think, than he promised to stay when he came." 



V 



THE FOURTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
OF CHICAGO, ILL., 1880-1883 

" Happy is the man taught by the truth itself, 

Not by the shapes and sounds that pass across his life." 

— Thomas a Kempis. 

DR. JOHNSON was installed pastor of 
the Fourth Church of Chicago, May 
30, 1880, Dr. Arthur Mitchell, then 
pastor of the First Church, preaching. The 
charge to the pastor was delivered by the Rev. 
R. W. Patterson, D.D., and the charge to the 
people by Dr. D. S. Johnson. 

In the autumn he began his course (contem- 
plated when he came to Chicago) of lectures 
on Sacred Rhetoric to the students of the Semi- 
nary of the Northwest. The following is the 
formal request of the Executive Committee of 
the Board of Directors : " Resolved, that in ac- 
cordance with the suggestion of Mr. McCormick, 
and with the entire concurrence of Dr. Halsey, 
Professor of Natural Theology and Church Gov- 
ernment, Rev. Herrick Johnson, D.D., be, and 
he hereby is, respectfully and earnestly invited 
to deliver a course of lectures in Sacred Rhetoric 
to the classes of the Seminary during the coming 
83 



84? HERRICK JOHNSON 



annual session, Mr. McCormick having given 
Dr. Johnson satisfactory personal obligations for 
this service." 

The substantial consideration is understood 
to have been two thousand dollars. On Novem- 
ber 7th of that year the Second Church of Au- 
burn, where Dr. Johnson had preached for a long 
time, while he was professor at Auburn, held its 
fiftieth anniversary of their organization as a 
church, and very naturally sent him an urgent 
invitation to be present at their celebration. I 
give herewith his letter to show how he bound 
men and churches to him by the strong cords 
of his loving heart: 

"71 Rush Street, Chicago, Nov. 7, 1880. 
" My Dear Brother Allbright : 

" All my heart goes out in congratulation to 
you and the dear people of the Second Church 
on the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary as 
an organized body of Jesus Christ. Jubilate! 
And how I would like to join you in the glad 
song! Something of my life went down into 
the church when I touched it a little while ago. 
Something of my life went down into your life 
also, dear Allbright, when we walked and talked 
together in your student days. So it would be a 
right joyous thing to touch all your palms next 
Wednesday night and join personally in the 
greetings of that good hour. But duties here 
forbid, and I must be content with a written 



FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 85 



' God bless you/ and a hand-shake half-way 
across the continent. Success to you, old half- 
century! Renew your youth like the eagle! 
Abide in strength, thou strong bow! Go forth 
with joy and singing, beautiful bride of Jesus ! 
Up with invisible walls to click of unseen trowel 
and with living masonry, O Zion of Auburn! 
" Yours in toil and love, 

" Herrick Johnson/' 

On November 21, 1880, Dr. Johnson began 
a series of sermons, or lectures, to be delivered in 
Farwell Hall, Sunday afternoon, which attracted 
very wide attention. The germ of them was 
started in Philadelphia. But it was not until 
this time that he elaborated them to the extent 
of making a notable book, called Christianity's 
Challenge. The topics of the lectures were 
" Christianity's C h a 1 1 e n g e," " Christianity's 
Book," "Christianity's Christ," "Christianity's 
Gospel of Definiteness," " Christianity's View of 
Man," "Christianity's Endless Death," "Chris- 
tianity and Endless Life." At the close of the 
series, the lectures were published. Circulation 
of the book was wide-spread, and has done an 
incalculable amount of good. One of the daily 
papers said : " It is certain to make a marked 
impression upon the religious thought of the 
times. It fills an unoccupied place in religious 
literature, and upon every page shows the hand 
of a master." " He is doing a good work in the 



86 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Fourth Church, and exerts a healthful influence 
beyond it. He never preached with greater 
power, more evangelically, spiritually, and af- 
fectionately than now, whilst as a Lecturer on 
Sacred Rhetoric he will do much to give char- 
acter to our future ministry." 

" He is a man of medium size and striking 
physique, having in every respect the air and 
manner of a Christian gentleman. The deep 
overhanging brow, piercing eye, unaided by 
glasses, so generally necessary to clergymen of 
his age, denote the great preponderance of the 
intellectual above the physical. But it is as the 
rhetorician and elocutionist that we specially 
admire this man. His style is clear and to the 
point. His delivery unlike that of many of the 
clergy, who seem to discharge a perfunctory 
duty, was filled with energy, the voice, although 
not a young man's, resounding at times through 
the spacious edifice, clear and wonderfully dis- 
tinct, yet managed with grace and elasticity, we 
could not but think it a first-class opportunity 
for our young and even older clergy to gather 
a few elocutionary hints from this master of the 
art of public speaking." 

At this time, 1881, the Revised Version of the 
New Testament came out, and the leading Chi- 
cago papers sent reporters to get the view of it 
from the various city pastors. Dr. Johnson re- 
plied : " You ask for my judgment respecting 
the practical utility of the new version of the 



FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 87 



New Testament for public, personal., and home 
use. The new version will tell every reader of 
the Xew Testament more nearly the exact truth 
of God. This is its supreme and eminently 
practical advantage. Nothing whatever can 
compensate for the lack of it. Nobody wants 
gloss and false guise in God's Word, whether 
for use in family prayers, private devotion, or 
Bible study. Sentiment, sonorous form, musical 
structure, old association, however sacred, every- 
thing must give way to truth. The new version 
is an honest, thorough, scholarly effort to get at 
the mind of the spirit, and to give that mind 
exact expression. 

" If it be said that archaisms, grammatical in- 
accuracies, and interpolations could be explained, 
the reply is. The Art of Scripture should explain 
itself. ' Take no thought for to-morrow ' wants 
clearing up. ' Be not anxious for to-morrow ' 
makes its meaning stare the reader in the face. 
' Charity ' sends the ordinary reader's thought at 
once to alms-giving. ' Love ' has largeness 
enough for all that is wrapped up in the original 
Greek. ' The lamp of the body is the eye :' how 
luminous that makes the passage, the ' light ' of 
which has been ' darkness ' to multitudes. And 
so on all through. If it be said that the new 
version will disturb the faith, the reply is that 
the faith that is disturbed by the truth rests in 
the letter and is not worth keeping." 

On July 4. Dr. Johnson delivered an address 



88 HERRICK JOHNSON 



to the Mills Society at Williams College, "of 
very great ability and excellence, producing a 
profound impression. He has a brilliant, lucid, 
and nervous style both of writing and speaking, 
his thoughts are incisive and his views of truth 
and duty such as the age and all ages demand. 
He has that accuracy of epithet, pertinency of 
illustration, and that peculiar choice and colloca- 
tion of words, which not only finish the sentence 
when it is concluded, but which arm the close of 
it with an explosive quality like that of a minie 
bullet." 

On Dr. Johnson's return to Chicago, in the 
fall of 1881, the papers were full of various ac- 
counts of a suspension of a member in a Pres- 
byterian church for dancing. On account of Dr, 
Johnson's decided views concerning certain 
forms of amusements, the press very naturally 
desired to get his opinion of this special case, 
and I am glad to quote his reply to show how 
sane his views were : " I hardly think that the 
statement of the case can be the correct one. I 
think that the Presbyterian Church without any 
question leaves that sort of thing to the individ- 
ual conscience. There must have been some- 
thing else in connection with that case beyond 
what is shown on the face of it. It cannot be 
possible that the Synod or Presbytery can have 
disciplined any man simply for indulgence in a 
cotillion. It certainly cannot be made a condi- 
tion of church membership, and such a provision 



FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 89 



is not in the bounds of our Church, so far as 
I know — anywhere. If such a rule is made in 
any individual case, it is without the authority 
of the Church. Dancing is not a matter of dis- 
cipline, and, in my judgment, ought not to be. 
It is one of that class of indulgences that comes 
under the law of things indifferent. It is one of 
those things which is not wrong or right of it- 
self, but only the one or the other in connection 
with surrounding circumstances. Therefore it 
is a thing which must be left for settlement as 
to its moral bearings to the individual conscience. 

" The great law of our Church in reference to 
church membership is this, namely, that there 
are no conditions of church membership which 
are not likewise conditions essential to salvation. 
In other words, we do not believe in making it 
harder to get into church than it is to get into 
Heaven. That is the great principle on which 
our Church is founded. I would here state that 
there is a very mistaken notion abroad that we 
are bigoted and narrow-minded, and needlessly 
strict, when the real truth is, that we are among 
the broadest and freest of churches in reference 
to conditions of church membership, in that our 
reception of members is based upon the funda- 
mental law to require no more conditions for 
church membership than we claim as necessary 
to secure salvation." 

In 1881 and 1882 Dr. Johnson began a series 
of sermons entitled " Plain Talk About the 



90 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Theatres," which greatly roused the city. 
Friends of the theatres, both in the Church and 
out, claimed that Dr. Johnson's unfamiliarity 
with the theatre made him a very unfair critic. 
He was vehemently attacked by theatre man- 
agers, prominent actors, stockholders of thea- 
tres, by leaders of fashionable clubs. He was 
charged with narrowness and ignorance; some 
contributors to the papers treated him cour- 
teously, others vituperatively. It was not like 
him to enter upon such a crusade without 
preparation. " Ordinarily," said one of the re- 
ligious papers, " a minister is placed at a great 
disadvantage in attacking the theatre, because 
from actual attendance he knows nothing of 
what goes on there. But in this case the dra- 
matic writers for the daily papers, by their 
sweeping criticisms and denunciations of trashy 
and immoral plays, which the theatres have for 
the most part exhibited, supplied Dr. Johnson 
with a well-stocked armory of weapons, and he 
made tremendously effective use of them. The 
latest chapter of the controversy is this : The 
Hon. E. C. Larned, an old and most reputable 
citizen of the city, published an open letter to 
Dr. Johnson, in which he courteously defended 
the theatre, and maintained that all its immorali- 
ties could be corrected if Christians and good 
people generally would come to the support of 
the theatre, and patronize only clean plays. 
Never was a luckless and self-confident adven- 



FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 91 



turer in the Alps more completely overwhelmed 
by an avalanche than was Mr. Larned by the 
reply which his defence brought forth from Dr. 
Johnson." 

These sermons and articles in defence from 
the attacks made upon him were gathered in a 
book named A Plain Talk About the Theatre, 
published by Revell. In the same season 
was issued a book, Revivals, Their Place 
and Power. Both books received a great deal 
of attention. Soon after this, in the spring 
of 1882, the General Assembly met in Spring- 
field. There was a great deal of interest shown 
in the election of a Moderator and a number of 
candidates. There was a special desire to do 
away with the recognition of the old divisions in 
the Church, before the reunion. Regularly the 
alternation of Moderators' Old School and New 
School went on year after year. The special ob- 
jection against any minister nominated would 
be that as the retiring Moderator formerly be- 
longed to the Old School, it would never do to 
elect this new man to the high office, because 
he too had been an Old School man. Several 
candidates were nominated, when Judge Moore 
of Chicago rose and nominated Dr. Herrick 
Johnson, not only because of his marked ability, 
but also because he belonged to the same school 
that the retiring Moderator belonged to — the 
New School. Judge Moore, himself an Old 
School man, said he wanted to break up this 



92 HERRICK JOHNSON 



regular oscillation between the New School and 
Old School. He hoped that the time had gone 
by when they could nominate a man only because 
he belonged to either the New or Old School. 
Dr. Johnson received 354 of the 444 votes cast. 
Thus the last trace of the old schism was ob- 
literated. 

The friends of Dr. Johnson, especially from 
the Chicago Presbytery, were naturally very 
much pleased over his election, claiming that the 
large majority was an indorsement of his warm 
fight against the theatres in Chicago the winter 
before. They claimed that the Presbyterian 
Church of the United States was in accord with 
Dr. Johnson in that fight, and that this large 
majority was his indorsement. The Chicago 
Times said : " Dr. Herrick Johnson, the able 
Pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church, of 
this city, who has been giving such heavy blasts 
against the theatre lately, was yesterday chosen 
presiding officer of the Presbyterian General 
Assembly of the United States, in session at 
Springfield, 111. Dr. Johnson may be a little too 
radical on the amusement question, but there are 
few abler theologians or pulpit orators than he 
is." Dr. Howard Crosby wrote him as follows: 

" My Dear Dr. Johnson : 

" I am rejoiced to hear of your election as 
Moderator. There is no man who more fitly 
represents the old and the new than yourself. 




Dr. Johnson as he was at "McCormack/ 



FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 93 



You are conservative and yet in the front rank 
of progress. With your administration the lines 
are obliterated entirely. I feel like having a 
bonfire in my yard to-night in honor of the oc- 
casion. God bless your presidency, and may 
the blessed Spirit baptize the Assembly. 

" Yours in Christ, 

"Howard Crosby. 

The New York Independent said of him : 
" The personnel of the Assembly may be 
sketched in a sentence. It is a body of good 
balance, sense, industry, and earnestness. It is 
composed in good part of the younger men of 
the Church, with enough of its more experienced 
leaders to keep its work well in hand and to 
carry it on according to proper forms and by 
approved methods. Its Moderator, Dr. Herrick 
Johnson, was chosen according to a deliberate 
purpose to bury the dividing lines between Old 
School and New School out of sight forever. 

" The Moderator is a success — a fine parlia- 
mentarian, prompt in decision, and positive in 
rulings and courteous always, he drives the busi- 
ness along as seeming not to drive it, and in- 
spires the Assembly always with his own cheer- 
ful, energetic, and devout spirit." Undoubtedly 
the most interesting, exciting, and momentous 
time in the Assembly was when the overture of 
the Presbyterian Church, South, was presented 
to seek for fellowship with a desire that the 



94 HERRICK JOHNSON 



" Bloody Chasm," caused by the war, be 
bridged, and both Churches meet in cordial fel- 
lowship. After a very spirited and exciting de- 
bate, growing out of an intense desire to do 
nothing that would detract from the past record 
of the Church on loyalty, a response to the cour- 
teous and Christian advance made by the Pres- 
byterian Church, South, was agreed upon 
amidst immense enthusiasm, cheers, tears, and 
doxologies. 

The action of the Moderator when he had with- 
drawn temporarily from the chair that he might 
take part in the debate, revealed his intense 
loyalty and his truly fraternal feeling toward the 
Southern Church. Dr. Johnson spoke with the 
fiery eloquence of a patriot, pleading for his 
country. He spoke excitedly, for he was ex- 
cited, and his supporters and opponents were for 
the moment carried away with his eloquence. 
When he closed with the declaration that he 
would lose his right arm before he would trample 
on the graves of the Union soldiers in the South, 
and say that treason was right, there followed 
such a storm of applause as is rarely seen in 
such a convention. Johnson never became so 
eloquent in his warfare on the vices of Chicago 
as when defending the loyalty of his church. 
And when he introduced his amendment to the 
troublesome motion it was carried with a loud 
and enthusiastic vote. At the conclusion of the 
business of the Assembly, Dr. Charles L. Thomp- 



FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 95 



son moved a vote of thanks to the Church, the 
city, and the Governor with a happy address 
such as he knows specially how to deliver. He 
said that their Assembly might be called the As- 
sembly of the Apostle John, while Dr. Matthew 
Newkirk, in seconding the resolution, said that 
they were not only in the spirit of the Apostle 
John, but of the Apostle Johnson. The Interior 
said : " The Assembly has never had a better 
Moderator, nor one, all things considered, so 
good, within our recollection. Quick, clear, cor- 
rect, and courteous, holding the business fully in 
hand, giving no offence, dispatching business 
with a rush, he was a model all through." 

In his 1882 vacation Dr. Johnson went to Lake 
George, and one of the papers of the time said 
of him : " Dr. Herrick Johnson and wife have 
come down from Saratoga, and beyond as far 
as Lake George, to Ocean Grove, from whence 
he will run up once more, next Sabbath, to 
preach to those who may gather at the Marble 
Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue at Twenty- 
ninth Street. His people out in Chicago will be 
glad to hear that he is in the best of health, and 
moreover, has just been surprised and compli- 
mented here in New York by the reception of 
the George Wood medal for the ' Premium Tract 
on the Glory of Christ/ his recent volume, en- 
titled Christianity's Challenge, having been ad- 
judged by the proper committee of the American 
Tract Society as above all competitors entitled to 



96 HERRICK JOHNSON 



this special and golden distinction. The medal 
is very handsomely engraved, every way a 
worthy memento of a work which, we are glad 
to say, is having a large sale. 

" This medal has been awarded for eight years 
past, the first time to Dr. Theo. Christlieb of the 
University of Bonn for his Modern Doubt and 
Christian Belief, and last year to George Smith, 
LL.D., for his life of Dr. Alexander Duff. Now 
an American has won it, and will wear it humbly 
as already the more signal honors of this sumptu- 
ous year which fell upon his shoulders from the 
Springfield sky." 

Through the autumn of this same year there 
was much to be done in answering criticisms 
from Southern sympathizers and conservatists 
regarding the way the Assembly, under his lead- 
ership, settled the reply to the overture of the 
Southern Church. All these criticisms faded 
out in due season, and time showed that the 
Southern and Northern Churches as a result of 
that action came nearer than ever before. It 
was in that summer that he received the honor- 
ary degree of LL.D. from the Trustees of Woos- 
ter University. 

In the fall of 1889 the Seminary of the North- 
west changed its name to that of McCormick 
Theological Seminary for very good reasons. 
It had been for years under the fostering care 
of the distinguished Mr. Cyrus McCormick, 
who, with Mrs. McCormick, his coadjutor in 



FOURTH CHURCH, CHICAGO 97 



every good word and work, had put up building 
after building, and added immensely to the en- 
dowment of the institution. After his death, his 
family still farther added greatly to the endow- 
ment, and the Trustees in grateful recognition 
of it all, changed the name to that of the Mc- 
Cormick Theological Seminary, making it a 
monument of his and his family's generous care 
of the great institution. The relation which Dr. 
Johnson held to that family was one of great 
affection on both sides. Through all his long 
and honorable career as a distinguished pro- 
fessor in the seminary, the friendship with that 
family was ever most inspiring to him. 



VI 



Mccormick theological seminary, 
1883-1903 

" No man is born into the world, whose work is not 
born with him, there is always work and tools to 
work withal, for those who will, and blessed are 
the horny hands of toil! The busy world shoves 
angrily aside the man who stands with arms akimbo 
set until occasion tells him what to do, and he who 
waits to have his task marked out shall die and 
leave his errand unfulfilled." 

— James Russell Lowell. 

IN June, 1883, Dr. Johnson resigned the 
pastorate of the Fourth Church, which he 
held, in common with a Lectureship on 
Homiletics in the Seminary of the Northwest, 
in order to give himself wholly to the work in 
the Chair of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, 
to which he had been called. The pastorate and 
the professorship together involved too much 
labor, and it was necessary for him to give up 
the one or the other, and he felt peculiarly 
drawn to the work of helping to make ministers, 
for which he had a peculiar and remarkable 
fitness. The church accepted his resignation 
with the deepest regret. In their resolution, 
among many things, the committee said: "He 
brings to his office an intellect clear, incisive, and 



Mccormick seminary 99 



comprehensive, a self-poised resolute character, 
and a life of devout spiritual consecration. He 
has taken advanced rank among the great lead- 
ers of the Presbyterian Church and of the 
Church of Christ universal, in all fields of Chris- 
tian effort He has proved to be the most suc- 
cessful advocate of higher education and a faith- 
ful and dauntless monitor of the public con- 
science. We gratefully recognize the energy, 
efficiency, tenderness, and faithfulness of his 
pastoral work," etc. 

As Dr. E. C. Ray, now the editor of 
the Pacific Presbyterian, Santa Barbara, Calif., 
was a most familiar or beloved friend of Dr. 
Johnson's, and for many years the Secretary of 
the College Board, which Dr. Johnson orig- 
inated, I have asked him to write an article on 
that board and Dr. Johnson's relation to it, and 
he has most kindly furnished the accompanying 
delightful paper. Had he been unable to do so, 
I would have applied to Dr. D. S. Gregory, the 
long-time and honored editor of the HomUetic 
Review, who was a most helpful member of that 
College board and who " did the fine and con- 
vincing work with facts and figures that Dr. 
Tohnson used with effect at the Assembly of 
1883": 

" Most of us see only what folks around us see, 
what we are all habituated to see. Here and 
there a man is tall enough to see over his con- 
temporaries' heads. We call him a statesman, 



100 HERRICK JOHNSON 



one fitted to lead the State. Thirty years ago 
there was but one man in the Presbyterian 
Church, so far as I know, aside from some presi- 
dents of Western colleges, who was tall enough 
to see that our denomination's weakest point, 
and a fatal one, was its neglect of college work. 
Everybody else stoutly boasted that we were ' a 
college-building and a college-endowing Church,' 
or asserted that denominational colleges were no 
longer needed. Other great denominations saw 
that such colleges were essential, and built and 
endowed them to from three to five times the 
colleges and endowment of them we had sup- 
plied to ourselves. Dr. Johnson saw the facts 
which others were blind to and saw the truth 
about the matter which others did not suspect. 
He, with a strong corps of lieutenants aiding, 
planned and secured the organization of the 
Presbyterian Board of Aid for Colleges and 
Academies, now the College Board of the Pres- 
byterian Church in the U. S. A. Within five 
years after the Board got to work our colleges 
and academies had increased fivefold. 

" The organization of the Board came about 
in an interesting way — the opportunity looked 
about until it found the man for the hour. The 
General Assembly of 1877 appointed a special 
committee on enlarging the functions of the 
Board of Education, the end in view being some 
plan to increase the movement of our sons into 
the ministry, one of the periodical alarming 



Mccormick seminary 101 



slumps in the supply of candidates being then 
upon us. The committee reported progress to 
the Assemblies of 1878, 1879, 1880, and 1881, in 
its final report recommending indefinite action. 
That report was then given to a new special 
committee, Dr. John Hall, Chairman. That com- 
mittee reported progress the next year, 1882, 
and Dr. Hall asked to have the chairmanship 
given to some one who could devote more time to 
the matter. Looking about for some gentleman 
of leisure, the Assembly chose one who had on 
hand only the pastorate of a great city church, a 
chair in a theological seminary, personal father- 
ing of its students, and perhaps a dozen other 
matters of first importance, and selected Dr. 
Johnson to add to the committee as its Chair-r 
man. 

" Then he worked. Two special committees 
had been running five years to get a good start 
to jump, but had been unable to find the starting 
line or the direction for the jump. Dr. John- 
son's committee did not run far, only a year, 
before it jumped. It recommended the organi- 
zation of the College Board, submitting a consti- 
tution for it, outlining its policies. The Church 
had been consolidating boards. The East was 
pretty solidly against a new board. Many pow- 
erful ministerial and lay delegates came up to 
the General Assembly resolved to prevent the 
formation of a College Board. The report of 
his committee was in Dr. Johnson's baggage, 



102 HERRICK JOHNSON 



completed, when he left Chicago for the Assem- 
bly at Saratoga; and all the way on the train 
he was preparing his sermon, as retiring Mod- 
erator, on the same subject. First that sermon, 
then the report of the committee, fell upon the 
commissioners with such irresistible weight of 
argument statistical, historical, and oratorical 
that opposition was smashed down to a single 
solitary negative vote. The Board of Aid was 
organized. 

" It got to work. Dr. Johnson was chosen 
President and so continued until he declined 
reelection two decades later. He sat at the head 
of the Board table ; but from that table he never 
took a bit of pie so big as a postage stamp, being 
there to give himself, not to get. Probably no 
president of one of our Church boards ever gave 
attention more comprehensive and more minute 
to all the Board's affairs. No patience was too 
great to be yielded to its lesser matters, no time 
too long, no concentration of mind too taxing 
to be given for its larger projects. He never 
dictated to the Board. He never domineered. 
But he dominated, and that solely by his seer- 
ship, his statesmanship, his devotion, his knowl- 
edge, his insight, outsight, foresight, his creative, 
organizing, administrative abilities freely at the 
Board's service. He planned, he corresponded, 
he travelled, he preached and talked, he inter- 
viewed, he solicited for the Board. He ex- 
hibited in all that service, in a most interesting 



Mccormick seminary ios 



manner, the union of certain pairs of balancing 
opposite qualities which are seen thus operating 
together in one person only in big statesmen and 
generals ; as, daring and discretion., intensity and 
indefatigableness, tenacity and tact, persever- 
ance and elasticity, readiness and sedulity, nerve 
and prudence, conscious power and consideration 
of others. He showed the rare statesman's qual- 
ity of inability to acknowledge defeat when 
smaller men would give up, or to remember any 
failure an hour after it occurred; instead of la- 
menting and despairing, he shut up that experi- 
ence in his subconsciousness and turned all his 
conscious powers into a new channel to lead to 
victory. 

" As Secretary of the Board for about twenty 
years from 1S91, I knew something of Dr. 
Johnson as President of the Board. The 
greatest greatness of my honored and beloved 
chief was not his statesmanship or generalship; 
it was his heart. As I watched the movements 
of that great heart toward our struggling insti- 
tution?, teachers, and students ; toward theo- 
logical students while under his tuition and ever 
afterward ; toward everybody and even-thing, but 
most of all toward myself, I realized what is 
meant by a great, true, tender, human, Christ- 
like heart. There were frequent happenings, 
and exhibitions of his heart there-anent, that 
filled me with wonder, with awe in my sense of 
his greatness. Of all the great men I have known, 



104 HERRICK JOHNSON 

he stands among the two or three in whom 
I never saw anything petty or mean ; and I knew 
him intimately for more than thirty years. I 
recall such instances, in our relations official or 
friendly, of bearing and forbearing, of never- 
failing kindness and courtesy, of criticism, 
counsel, commendation of ready sympathy and 
making allowance, and, above all particulars, of 
such an atmosphere, such a spirit pervading his 
relations with me, that it all stands in my mind 
as the ideal of friendship — the real thing, friend- 
ship so high, so unselfish, so faithful, so trusting, 
so inspiring, steadying, vitalizing, compelling, 
that I can compare it to nothing else in my world 
but the friendship of two women, my mother 
and my wife. 

" E. C. Ray." 

The following letter was written by my be- 
loved friend, to greet Mrs. Robinson and myself 
while on an eight months' absence in Europe, 
during which I had the great joy of visiting 
Egypt and the Holy Land, while Mrs. Robinson 
remained in Italy: 

" Southampton, L. I., July 6, 1887. 
" Here by the sea at last I find leisure for a 
word to you, Old Great Heart. You are not so 
full of the glories of your royal journeyings that 
you won't welcome tidings from an Old ' Ordi- 
nary/ Perhaps you don't know that we, too, 
have been sightseeing (we two) and that the rush 



Mccormick seminary 105 



across the continent and back and straightway 
thereupon to Kansas City and back, with prepa- 
ration for three College Commencements, have 
kept me from sending you earlier greetings and 
congratulations. I went to San Francisco in the 
interest of the International Y.M.C.A. to address 
the Triennial Convention there. They gave me 
two hundred dollars for the trip, so I took Katie 
along and the wish of years was gratified. We 
went by Denver and Rio Grande and returned by 
Northern Pacific, and every step of the way was 
a delight. Yosemite met utmost expectation, and 
that is saying a marvellous thing, for expectation 
was at a great height. That valley is one of the 
half-dozen things in this world that have not 
disappointed me. And, while the first sight was 
impressive beyond expression, the scene grew on 
day by day, and I longed to spend weeks there. 
The isolation of the great peaks in the Rocky 
and Cascade Ranges gave them a grandeur and 
uplift surpassing any single peak of the Alps. 
Though Hood and Shasta and St. Helen are not 
by any means as high as Mont Blanc and Monte 
Rosa, it was a great journey and has whetted ap- 
petite for the greater one, viz., Alaska, which 
from Dr. Roberts' description must be one of the 
wonders of the world. 

" How you filled and thrilled me with your 
account of ' The Land,' and how you touched me 
by telling of your frequent thought of us, as 
you passed from holy place to holy place, and 



106 HERRICK JOHNSON 

felt the stir of the associations and the presence 
of the King. ' Herrick would enjoy all that ■ 
indeed and he prays God to put this precious wine 
of delight into, his cup before he goes hence, and 
he thanks God that, seeing the sickness must 
come, it was made the occasion of putting to 
Charlie Rob's lips this exquisite draught. Drink 
it, Dear Boy, with a great appreciation and a 
great gratitude and with it may come thrills of 
new vitality and an assurance of a new lease 
of vigorous and joyous life. Now I judge you 
and Clara are together again and bathing in the 
splendor of Switzerland. May your souls grow 
larger and your vision of God clearer, and your 
song of gratitude more rich and tender amidst 
the inspiring presence. 

"Herrick." 

Then came his greeting on our return from 
the long tour. 

" Chicago, 111., Dec. 21, 1887. 
" Welcome back to the pastorate. You belong 
there. I pray that the resumption of the old 
toil may be the open door to the richest work 
of your life. I like what you say of the Scranton 
field. It seems full of promise. Blessings on 
yOu, dear old heart. Palestine is uncertain, i.e., 
our trip to it. I am booked for the Presbyterian 
Council meeting in London, in June next. We 
are dreaming a little of a tour among the far 
Oriental nations. George Knox has just been 



Mccormick seminary 107 

here with stirring appeals for Japan. Dr. Hap- 
per preceded him in behalf of China. A visit 
among the missionaries would be a great treat. 
Actually, to look upon Japan's marvellous revo- 
lution would be a rare privilege. Mighty changes, 
the mightiest our world ever saw, are soon to 
take place in the vast empires of the Orient, I do 
most confidently believe. The boys that go now 
and take their places there will be in the swim. 
Six or eight of the choicest go from our Senior 
Class — Charlie, it's just magnificent to have the 
touch of these young men who are to be the 
heroes for God of the next twenty-five or fifty 
years. Let the pessimists croak. My face is 
toward the radiant morning. My old ram's horn 
is going to be jubilant and hopeful. What a 
splendid breath of inspiration the Supreme Court 
gave us Prohibitionists the other day [later in life 
Dr. Johnson returned to the Republican Party 
and cast his last vote for Taft] . How noble and 
Christian were Cleveland's words to the Evan- 
gelical Alliance delegation, week before last. 
You can hardly imagine how still the air is since 
we hanged the Anarchists. The gladdest of holi- 
days to you and yours from us both. As ever, 

" Herrick." 

In addressing a friend who was particularly 
happy in his pastorate he wrote : " I do greatly 
rejoice in what you write of your field and work. 
Why should not the mellow golden days of life 



108 HERRICK JOHNSON 



be the richest, where a man has gotten as you 
have into the inner sanctuaries of his people's 
hearts ? 

" I cancelled many of my preaching engage- 
ments in justice to Katie and the Seminary. Re- 
action came after Commencement, but it came the 
wrong way. The path back and up was so try- 
ing, and the progress so slow, that I deemed it 
only just to all interests to honor some of my 
engagements in the breach. I preached a half 
a dozen times during the summer, where only one 
Sabbath service was called for, and by making a 
business of loafing I am back in the harness in 
fair shape. It fell to my lot to open the Seminary 
with an address and you would agree with and 
heartily endorse most of its contention. It was 
on ' Preaching and the Preacher/ The quar- 
tette I named for the latter being grace, grit, 
gumption, go. As ever, 

" Herrick." 

To a friend, he wrote, October 27, 1895 : 

" Where are you ? In the highway of the 
King of course, at the Master's business, winning 
souls. How are you? Well, I trust, full of fire 
and fervor, hopeful and trustful, ' putting a 
cheerful courage on,' as you begin the New 
Year's work. I am ordered out to grass, no more 
work for a year is the physician's imperative 
prescription. The old brain has been driven so 



Mccormick seminary 109 



relentlessly, it is entering protest. I never knew 
until lately that I had a spine. So many physi- 
cians agreed as to the diagnosis and their ver- 
dict so accorded with my own conviction, that 
I have deliberately dropped all work, and as soon 
as matters can be adjusted here we start for the 
' Alma Health and Rest ' at Alma, Mich., where 
we shall probably spend two months and then go 
somewhere south (possibly California, possibly 
Honolulu) for equable temperature, outdoor 
lives, and sun baths. I seemed to be improving 
until I reached Liverpool. Then I had unmis- 
takable notice that all was not right in my nerv- 
ous system. Anaemia was the immediate symp- 
tom. The remote and underlying trouble, 
impaired nerve tissue. I must go to work build- 
ing up this nerve tissue. 

" The doctors are sure that I can be on my feet 
in twelve months, with absolute rest meanwhile. 
They are sure of nothing if I keep at three 
months, except irretrievable disaster. I obey, I 
go into retirement, I turn my back on what is 
dearer to me than life, my life work, in the hope 
that temporary abandonment will give me a new 
lease both of life and work. I am so fond of a 
racket that I know that this is going to be a 
bitter medicine to take. But Katie and I are 
already trying to get some sweetness out of the 
bitterness and we are talking over the possible 
blessings ' this cloud is big with ' and picturing 
to ourselves the delights we may come across in, 



110 HERRICK JOHNSON 



' studying to be quiet ' ; and blessed surprises the 
dear Lord may have for us, along this wilderness 
way. You and your wife must hold us in your 
hearts and wrap us about with your believing 
prayers. Your breezy, precious letter reached us 
in London just before we started for home. May 
God enrich you more bountifully than ever for 
the work of rescue and structure and make this 
year the best of all in your honored ministry. 
As of old, 

" Herrick." 

Through the years of '90 to '95, Dr. Johnson 
was intensely alive to many questions. He was 
preparing the way for the great success of the 
revision which came in 1901. He wrote many 
articles tingling with intense life, on that subject. 
Then he threw himself into the midst of the fight 
for the Sunday closing of the World's Fair, in 
Chicago. He advocated it with a burning zeal 
which was characteristic of him, and the failure 
of the movement was to him a bitter disappoint- 
ment. He wrote many articles on the World's 
Parliament of Religion, and cleared the air of 
many of the assumptions of its advocates, so that 
it came to be considered for what it was worth, 
stripped of the Orientalisms and false lights of 
the East. 

Dr. Joseph W. Cochran, secretary of the Board 
of Education, in an address at the Memorial 
Meeting held at Philadelphia, recalls in a most 



Mccormick seminary hi 



inspiring way Dr. Johnson's presence and address 
at the Chicago Auditorium in advocacy of the 
closing of the great Fair at Chicago on Sunday. 
" Oh how that lion nature, fearless of soul, as 
the flash of his eagle eye betokened, would rise 
to the height of emotional fervor and with that 
clarion voice shake congregations out of their 
spiritual torpor. I never saw such a telling 
exposition of the Spirit-filled personality as I did 
when Dr. Johnson stood in the Auditorium at 
Chicago speaking on the Sunday closing of the 
World's Fair in '93. One intense sentence of 
absolutely irrefutable logic fused in that mighty 
heart and hurled into the heart of that great 
congregation sent the people to their feet in- 
stantly and the applause that rang out was 
deafening." He carried on his continued fight 
for temperance, working hand in glove with the 
Prohibitionists, the W.C.T.U., and all the other 
temperance organizations. 

The intense life he lived made it necessary for 
him to take a long rest in California in winter 
of '95 and '96. He wrote at this time as follows : 

"April 30, 1896, San Diego, Cal. 

"Yours of April 2i> directed to the care of 
Prof. Stevenson, was at once forwarded to San 
Diego and, when it got here, was at once eagerly 
devoured, and, like everything else from your 
dear, old, faithful heart, was good to take. 

" Yes, God has been exceeding good to us and 



11% HERRICK JOHNSON 



has not let us see much of the dark side of min- 
isterial life. Eternity won't be too long to tell 
Him our gratitude. Yet I am not sure but some 
of the loaded, bowed-down ones will have a 
deeper gratitude to tell to the dear Lord. For in 
the darker rooms through which they have been 
led there may have been vouchsafed visions to 
them which we have not been permitted to enjoy 
along the sunny slopes. 

" We have come to a wonderful climate, in- 
deed, here in Southern California. Chas. Dudley 
Warner calls this region ' Our Italy/ and while 
in finished cultivation and historic association the 
term is inappropriate, yet in superb climatic con- 
ditions it is more than justified. Egypt's March 
last year was not near so choice, so balmy, so 
flooded with sunshine and so rich with floral 
beauty, as the March of this Southern Pacific 
Coast. Even Italy's, wonderful old Italy's, glory 
pales in comparison. Come down here some day, 
when you and your wife are weary, and take 
these sun baths and sing a new song of the good- 
ness of the Lord. We were up at Los Angeles 
last week attending La Fiesta and it was sur- 
passingly beautiful. The floral parade was sim- 
ply magnificent. We took a hurried run to Red- 
lands to the now quite celebrated Smiley Bros.' 
Paradise, but the Mohonk home rivals and out- 
vies it. By the by, why have you never climbed 
the Mohonk heights? My impression is you 
have never been there. See it late in June, and 



Mccormick seminary 113 



you will own it is the most picturesque spot your 
eye ever rested on in Uncle Sam's domain. 

" We hardly know how long we shall stay in 
San Diego. The climate is ideal, and everybody 
assures us the summers here are as fine as the 
winters and springs. Strictly, there are no such 
things here as summers, and winters, and springs. 
The sun, and the flowers, and the delicious balm 
take full possession the year round and like 
Death 1 have all seasons for their own/ But 
the probabilities now are that we shall turn our 
faces Chicago-ward the middle or the last of 
June, attend to a few household matters, and 
then ... ? Possibly Mohunk, possibly West- 
minster Park, possibly southern Michigan. We 
hope to resume ' business at the old stand ' in 
September. If God grant us this we shall be 
very grateful, and if He deny us this we shall 
try to say with a submissive and chastened cheer- 
fulness, Even so, Father. 

" As ever — forever, 

" Herrick." 

The great question of the Revision of the 
Standards was inevitable. The coming together 
of the New School and the Old, in the quickening 
time of that reunion, rendered the Revision the 
natural outcome. The division was as sharply de- 
fined as had been the Separation of the Two 
Schools, though it did not follow the lines of the 
two former bodies. 



114 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Men who were opposed to the question were 
not necessarily historically Old School men. 
There were surprising outcomes. Dr. Johnson's 
attitude toward it might have caused those to 
wonder who knew him only in early days, when 
he was so strong a Calvinist. But those who had 
followed his career and noted his open mind, 
his responsiveness to progress, understood it. 
Dr. Howard Crosby's note to him, at his election 
as Moderator, had in it an intimation of such a 
development. " You are conservative and in the 
front rank of progress.'' 

The thought of freeing the Standards from the 
archaic forms of speech, which made them mis- 
understood, and of giving a bold free ringing 
statement of the definite Love of God, in the 
Salvation of men, moved him mightily. He went 
into the movement with great intensity and en- 
thusiasm. Here is a letter written in that time, 
in which he refers to the whole question : 

" March 10, 1901. 
" Your letter of Feb. 21 was a cordial one. 
It went down into my heart's depths. God bless 
you. The company that sees threescore and ten 
years this side of Heaven are never numerous. 
Nearly all the old intimates of the early days are 
in Heaven. We shall be going soon, and we 
have no new terms to make with the blessed 
Lord. We took Him at His word, and settled 
things once for all, and I rather think we need 



Mccormick seminary 115 



not trouble ourselves now about the final issue, 
■ I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all/ but I can 
look up into the Lord's face and say, 'Thou know- 
est all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee.' 

" Yet the blessed Master has permitted me to 
wag my pen again and I do want it to do service 
to the Truth. We had a fine evening in New 
York (at the Presbyterian Reunion banquet). 
All the social, aesthetic, and material appointments 
were perfect and a beautiful spirit of love and 
manly Christian courtesy pervaded the discus- 
sion; you doubtless have already seen the ad- 
dresses in the Evangelist. They are to be put in 
pamphlet form and widely circulated, as is being 
done by the Evangelist Publishing Co. I take it 
as evidence that the Evangelist at least is quite 
well satisfied with the way things went. 

" I saw our good Brother that evening 

and tried as an old friend to get from him one 
good reason why he opposed all changes in our 
confession, but I failed in his case as I have failed 
in every case. Charlie, my recent studies of the 
confession make it absolutely impossible for me 
ever again to regard our present confession as 
a satisfactory statement of our faith. We cannot 
any longer look intelligent men in the face and 
go on declaring that the confession states Pres- 
byterian belief. Its omissions are worse than its 
commissions ! Do see to it that your Presbytery 
is represented in the next Assembly and be there 
yourself. 



116 HERRICK JOHNSON 



" Katie has not been at all well this winter, al- 
though she has had no severe illness of any kind. 
We are jogging on together, thanking God for the 
daily fellowship and thinking it very sweet and 
beautiful to grow old looking off into the west 
' where all the Heaven-bound sunsets go.' Do 
you go to the Assembly this year ? I do hope you 
are a commissioner. Grave questions are to be 
settled. We need balance and poise. Did you 
See Chicago's overture to the Assembly on the 
question of credal changes? I flung it on the 
Presbytery without consultation, but it went 
through with only one dissenting vote. Some- 
thing must be done. But nothing should be done 
in a spasm." 

The General Assembly of 1901 was a notable 
one. The Debates on the Revision of our stand- 
ards and a new statement of doctrine brought out 
the strongest men on both sides and their dis- 
cussion was very able and brilliant. The Chris- 
tian Work says : " One of the strongest men of 
the Presbyterian Church to-day is Prof. Herrick 
Johnson of the McCormick Theological Semi- 
nary, whose orthodoxy none may question, and 
whose devotion to the Presbyterian System of 
doctrine none can impugn. In a recent communi- 
cation to the Interior, Dr. Johnson, conservative 
as he is, expresses himself with characteristic 
directness upon the Presbyterian situation. He 
affirms that it must be seen that our Church is 



Mccormick seminary 117 

formally and constitutionally put on the road to 
an actual change in her doctrinal standards, the 
next battle, if there is to be a battle, he says 
will be in the next Assembly, when this Com- 
mittee now appointed and instructed shall make 
report of its work. Dr. Johnson thinks that the 
action taken was wise and eminently commend- 
able. He adds : ' It is that to which I have given 
the advocacy of pen and voice for the last year, 
•and for which I do most devoutly thank God. 
It puts us on the road to constitutional change 
by constitutional methods. It settles for the time 
being at least some very agitating and vexing 
questions. It promises to take some stumbling- 
blocks out of our existing creed. It promises to 
furnish us a brief, clear statement of doctrine 
that will make further misconstruction less pos- 
sible. It secures a most happy and surprising 
unanimity of action. And if it issues in success, 
I most confidently and joyfully believe it will set 
our Church forward with high hope and joyful 
agreement to a great work of evangelization and 
conquest for the good of man and the glory of 
God." 

Here is a much prized letter I received about 
this time : 

" McCormick Theological Seminary, 

" April 28, 1912. 
" I went through the work of the last Assembly 
1 with fear and trembling/ sensible that the 



118 HERRICK JOHNSON 



strain was great. I face the coming Assembly, 
therefore, with some doubt whether it is wise for 
me to take up the burden it of course will im- 
pose. But Presbytery insisted that the interests 
involved made it desirable for me to go again, 
and I have consented. Our Revision Committee 
had a delightful meeting at Pittsburgh, and the 
unanimity reached was remarkable in the circum- 
stances. The report ought to carry, but to keep 
the extremists from kicking the traces, to win 
men who want nothing in the way of change 
and at the same time to win men who want 
everything in the way of change is a kind of 
gee-haw process compared with which driving a 
couple of cantankerous and independent mules 
would be child's play. Here is a good brother 
who is reported as saying he would rather wait 
ten years and then get an absolutely new creed 
than get now what our report offers. I am sure 
that even the explanatory modifications as sug- 
gested would be great gain, and if we can only 
get the brief summary of our faith something 
like the Articles of Faith of the Presbyterian 
Church of England, the gain would be immense. 

" Well, the fight will be on soon in the Assem- 
bly. I marvel at the men who can resist an 
honest movement to put the love of God for a 
lost world in our published creed. It is a strange, 
sad, and almost wicked anomaly; I pray God it 
may end soon. By the grace of God, it shall 
end some day. Your loving and loyal invitation 



Mccormick seminary 119 



to Katie and me to come to your home on our 
way to the Assembly for a week's visit touches 
our hearts and we thank you both for the warmth 
and the urgency of it. But, alas ! that week I am 
counting on as the only time I can get in which 
to make any possible preparation for the battle 
that will be on at the Assembly, not only the revi- 
sion battle, but two or three others that are loom- 
ing up. 

" Last week's Committee meeting at Pittsburgh 
was a severe strain. This is Commencement 
week. We cannot possibly leave here before 
the Tuesday preceding the opening day of the 
Assembly. So, dearly beloved friends, accept 
from us both assurance of our heartiest apprecia- 
tion. It would be a joy to be with you and to 
go round about counting the signs of your rescue 
and structure work. Don't you expect to get to 
the Fair at Buffalo? We are booked for a few 
days there about the last of June at the Alcazar 
Hotel, near the Exposition grounds. Do join 
us and renew the sightseeing experiences we had 
when you were visiting us here in Chicago, when 
the White City was reared and the W orld was on 
exhibition by our Lake Front. 

" In the old bonds, 

" Herrick." 

The Chicago Interior, in August, 1901, contains 
the following statement : " The inventive reports 
of the secular press have been 90 busy giving out 



120 HERRICK JOHNSON 



misinformation in regard to the work of our 
Committee upon Revision, that it seems best to 
give the facts in the case : Dr. Herrick Johnson is 
the Chairman of the Committee entrusted with 
preparing a new statement of doctrine; Dr. 
Dickey is chairman of the Committee entrusted 
with the revision of certain specified sections of 
the Confession, either by changes of text or 
declaratory statement, and Dr. Niccols is chair- 
man of the Committee to prepare a new chapter 
on the Love of God, Missions, and the Holy 
Spirit. Our readers will agree with us 
that happier selections could not have been 
made." 

When the General Assembly met in the Fifth 
Avenue Church, New York, May, 1902, Dr. 
van Dyke was elected Moderator, and the report 
of the Committee on Revision was the burning 
question. 

It is no province of this book to give an account 
of the whole debate. What Dr. Johnson thought 
of it, and how he regarded it is what we are after. 
He says that the Brief Doctrinal statement is 
" far and away the most significant and signal 
action ever taken by American Presbyterianism. 
It is the realization of the hope of years. It is 
the product of more light from God's Word. As 
more light in nature changes the appearance of a 
landscape, throws some things in shadow, brings 
out other things more fully to view and yet does 
not take away a single essential of the landscapes, 



Mccormick seminary 121 



so that restatement gives to the great truths of 
God which it has always been our joy to hold, an 
order and proportion and perspective and em- 
phasis born of the better knowledge we have to- 
day of the Divine word. Eternal truths have 
not changed, but their relations and proportions 
have changed. 

" This Brief Statement is an immortal. Men 
may try to hedge it about, they may put their 
limiting, clamping irons upon it, they may bind 
it with bands of steel and bend it back into an 
iron coffin as if it were a dead thing. But this 
Brief Statement of doctrine is an immortal. If it 
is ever buried, it will be buried alive. And by the 
life of God, and of the truth that is in it, it will 
come forth from the tomb the conqueror of death 
and remain, we may well believe, for centuries, 
the balanced and tender exponent of that system 
of doctrine which the Presbyterian Church has 
ever deemed it her privilege and her joy to cher- 
ish and defend. It will be preached in thousands 
of pulpits from the first article to the last. It will 
be committed to memory. It will become as a 
familiar household word in Christian homes. 
Whether formally placed in our doctrinal " Hall 
of Fame " alongside our Confession, catechism, 
and Apostles' Creed or scattered broadcast as the 
leaves of the morning, it is instinct with life and 
love, and power and victory. It has come to 
stay." 

To a friend he writes : 



m HERRICK JOHNSON 



June 1 6, 1 901 : " Yes, to my mind, matters 
shape themselves somewhat as follows. A new 
creed embracing the essential features of the 
old Confession, expressed in modern way in 
Scriptural proportions and form and spirit, as 
an authoritative and official interpretation of 
what we as Presbyterians have believed and do 
now believe, and so prepared as to give no justi- 
fication whatever for the judgments passed upon 
us, and the charges made against us. Then our 
doctrinal standards will consist of the old Con- 
fession as it is now. The larger and shorter 
catechism. The Apostles' Creed, and this new 
statement of our faith, is interpretive of the 
others. To this latter alone shall subscription 
henceforth be required inasmuch as it is to con- 
tain all that is vital to the evangelical, the 
Protestant, and the Reformed or Calvinistic sys- 
tem of doctrine now in our common standards. 
But I hope by God's sweet grace to hold my 
mind open to suggestions from any quarter. 
That we are on the road to some change, I feel 
quite sure. Assembly has taxed me greatly and 
put me under nervous strain. Committee work 
was unusually exacting, but things went our way, 
and that of course made the burden lighter. On 
Revision, the paper I submitted to our Presby- 
tery, and which passed, came at last to be the 
Commissioners' action of the Committee on Bills 
and Overtures, and so finally the action of the 



McCORMICK SEMINARY 123 



Assembly. So we are again face to face with 
*the question of credal changes. 

" We are now to hear the voice of the Church 
through the Presbyteries. But I do not believe 
any change is possible at the sacrifice of funda- 
mentals. And therefore I have no sympathy with 
those who stand trembling for the Ark of God 
because of a possible change of hue in the color 
of the curtains ! " 

Reference has been made to Dr. Johnson's re- 
markably clear and resonant voice in the General 
Assembly or wherever he speaks. A reporter 
once remarked that the man who calls out 
" louder," " louder/' always looked sad when Dr. 
Johnson got up. His occupation was gone! 

All through this time of intense thought and 
discussions of the great subject of Revision, Dr. 
Johnson's regular work in the theological semi- 
nary was going on, he lecturing to the various 
classes, and always in the white heat of intense 
conviction and superb power. He met every 
student personally, for helpful, inspiring, sug- 
gestive criticism, over his lecture room talks or 
his sermon preached before the class. In this 
work he never spared himself ; he was faithful to 
each man — so sharp and critical that it would 
have completely upset the student had it not been 
accompanied with a personal magnetism and 
kindly spirit and loving heart. He had a way of 
assuring the poor fellow whom he had shot 



IU HERRICK JOHNSON 



through and through with criticism, and whose 
little sermon he had riddled, that all this was 
the best thing in the world for him; that in no 
way could he be made a first-class preacher, ex- 
cept by being knocked down, and having the 
pieces picked up, and put together again in a 
shapelier, finer, stronger fashion than before. 

The Rev. John T. Faris of the Board of Publi- 
cation, in a letter to the Memorial Meeting in 
Philadelphia, gave a humorous account of Dr. 
Johnson's criticism of a paper he had handed in. 
"A few days after my paper (a written test in 
his department) was put into his hands he called 
me to his desk after class and said sadly, ' Faris, 
that paper was not worthy of you. It was not 
worthy of your grandfather/ There wasn't any 
answer to such an appeal as that but to set to 
work a little harder." 

One man who was formerly a student of Dr. 
Johnson's, now a very able and brilliant and 
successful professor in a theological seminary, 
writes to me about his influence upon him as a 
teacher. " It is difficult for me to realize that 
his work on earth is done. He had in him a 
strength that seemed untouchable by years. How 
much I owe to him ! His strong personality and 
vigorous thought and telling way of putting truth 
had a wide influence. America has never had a 
better teachers of homiletics. Men strong like 
himself sometimes objected to what they felt was 
a dogmatic tone in him. But the majority of men 



McCORMICK SEMINARY 125 



in the seminary needed his positive message and 
above all the inspiration which he gave them to 
speak with force and directness." 

And not only was all this personal and profes- 
sional work going on all through the years of the 
intense excitement of the Revision debates, and 
the numberless articles written in its defence. 
But he also showed a most remarkable and 
fecund treatment of various other subjects — 
Temperance, Prohibition, Dr. Briggs's supposed 
heretical books, and also Dr. Giffert's. It must 
have been a source of considerable surprise to 
those who regarded Dr. Johnson as severely Cal- 
vinistic to note the breadth and fraternal spirit 
with which he treated both these much criticised 
men. While recognizing their divergence, in 
some respects, from the generally received views 
of Presbyterians, he stoutly maintained that they 
were orthodox in essentials. He insisted that 
they were too good, true, and scholarly to be put 
out of the Presbyterian fold. And that was right 
in the midst of the intensely bitter fight in our 
Church over Revision and Heresy. To-day, if 
Dr. Briggs were still alive, he would be regarded 
as the mildest kind of divergent from our stan- 
dards, and Dr. Giffert — well, some of us would 
like him back. 

In 1902 came Dr. Johnson's seventieth birth- 
day, which he allowed to pass quietly by; but 
when some of his devoted friends in Chicago 
found it out later, they declared that so marked 



126 HERRICK JOHNSON 



an epoch in a great career so signally useful 
must receive some special recognition. A com- 
mittee was therefore appointed to arrange a 
dinner to be given in Dr. Johnson's honor, at 
the Ministry Club on the evening of December 
16th. 

The Interior said of him, in view of this din- 
ner : " Chicago Presbytery is in no peril of insidi- 
ous dispute over the identity of its premier 
member. By virtue of his now advanced and 
honor commanding years, by virtue of his vast 
personal influence in the Presbyterian Church, 
and by virtue of his magnificent wealth of en- 
dowment as theological preacher, teacher, and 
statesman in the Kingdom of God, Dr. Herrick 
Johnson holds a preeminence, among his fellow 
presbyters, which they are not only forward to 
acknowledge in the name of the love they bear 
him, but which they are proud to assert as one 
of the particular glories of the ecclesiastical body 
with which they are jointly identified. There 
is only one member of this Presbytery who 
remains oblivious to this distinction, and that is 
Dr. Johnson himself. He will count himself the 
equal only of the latest ordained minister in the 
Presbytery. 

" Every felicity that could be desired for such 
an occasion as this dinner in his honor attended 
this delightful evening. Arrangements for dinner 
were absolutely perfect in details. A pleasant 
and thoughtful provision for the event had been 



Mccormick seminary 127 



the collection of letters of congratulation from 
alumni of McCormick Seminary and the Doctor's 
personal friends throughout the country. A 
great number of these were read at the table, 
and they constituted together a remarkable 
symposium of sentiments of affection and ac- 
knowledgments of influence from many who 
have known him most intimately in the relations 
of the class-room and of denominational service. 
The heartiest and most beautiful of all these trib- 
utes was, as common consent agreed, the letter 
of Mrs. Nettie F. McCormick, who expressed 
gratitude for the part which Dr. Johnson had 
borne in widening the efficiency of our beloved 
Seminary, also for his worth as friend and spirit- 
ual counsellor to her late husband, to herself, and 
to her children." 

The after-dinner speeches were chapters in a 
eulogium of rare insight, tenderness, and love, 
depicting in succession the elements of nobility in 
the character of the evening's guest, and the 
extraordinary usefulness of the work which he 
has done for the Master and the Church. 

The special guests of the evening were heard 
first. Bishop Cheney of the Reformed Episcopal 
Church paid a heartfelt tribute to Dr. Johnson, 
and Dr. Simeon Gilbert, former editor of the 
Advance, voiced the high admiration of the Con- 
gregationalists for Dr. Johnson's statesmanlike 
courage in the Christian world. Tributes from 
members of the Presbytery then followed from 



128 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Drs. Carson, Notman, McClure, the President of 
McCormick Seminary, and Professor Geo. L. 
Robinson. Finally Dr. E. C. Ray, Secretary of 
the Board of College Aid, analyzed with loyal 
praise the character which Dr. Johnson had 
shown in his relation to that Board as its Presi- 
dent. Dr. McCaughan, as Chairman of the even- 
ing, added his informal testimony to the esteem 
entertained for Dr. Johnson in allied Churches 
across the seas. Mr. Wright then presented to 
Dr. Johnson, with very brief but felicitous re- 
marks, a silver loving cup appropriately en- 
graved to commemorate the Presbytery's recog- 
nition of his seventy-first year. 

Then it was the guest's time to reply. The 
scene as he rose, and as the company rose to greet 
him, will be for long years a theme for pleasant 
memory to those who were gathered in that ban- 
quet-room. There was applause to welcome him 
before he began to speak, but none as he pro- 
ceeded. The feeling of the moment was too 
tense for outbreaking demonstration. Dr. John- 
son's response was not a speech, he simply talked 
to his friends — at first in low strained tones, 
which emotion was almost choking. But his 
heart-vibrant sentences as he declared his grati- 
tude for the love of his brethren, yet protesting 
his unworthiness to hear their praises, were far 
better and more than a speech. They were the 
unaffected outpouring of a great man's soul, and 
his words, as he spoke, ascended from the beauti- 



Mccormick seminary 129 



ful to the sublime. His hearers bent forward 
listening — enthralled — while he summed up the 
learning of his manhood years as all encompassed 
in a dearer love of God's will and God's Word, 
and in a deeper appreciation of the Lordship of 
Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy 
Spirit. With shining face the venerable Doctor 
declared his exceeding gladness at knowing that 
ere long he should see his Saviour. And they who 
loved him so well before, loved him more deeply 
than ever, as twice he repeated in a voice of 
intense fervor: 

" I am just a poor sinner and nothing at all, 
But Jesus Christ is my all in all ! " 

I wish space permitted me to quote all the 
remarkable letters from old friends, and gradu- 
ates from the Seminary who had had the great 
privilege and joy of being under his instruction, 
he received that night. Room must, however, be 
found for some of them. First of all, I quote 
the beautiful letter from Mrs. McCormick. 

" December 16, 1902. 
" To the Master of Ceremonies : 

" One impulse rules us all to-night, and that is 
to show the love and loyalty of our hearts to him 
who has been to the Seminary, these twenty 
years, a wise counsellor, an able professor, and 
unfailing friend. Often it is said, — and truly, — 
there will never come another who can teach the 



130 HERRICK JOHNSON 



students how to be pastors, how to lead, and win 
their flock, as our dear Dr. Johnson has done. 

" I remember with gratitude all about his 
coming, and the delightful relations of friendship 
that existed between my dear husband and him 
whom we would fain honor to-night. The mem- 
ory of the visits, the talks, the cheer he brought 
to him, — often in hours of physical suffering, 
dispelling pain, and making him join in whole- 
some, hearty laughter. Who of us has not felt 
the magnetism of his honest, ringing voice when 
bringing out his convictions of truth, — who of 
us has not been drawn to him by the loving 
kindness that rules his nature? He has been a 
blessing to my children. There is a mistake 
about the figures, — Dr. Johnson is not seventy! 
Youth still looks from out his eagle eye, and his 
good right arm still has the strength of ten! 
Long may he remain to grace the pastoral chair 
in our dear Seminary ! 

"Nettie F. McCormick." 

Dr. Allison of the First Church of Bristol, Pa., 
wrote : "I am glad I can write you while you 
are in the fulness and buoyancy of mature life. 
I thank you to-day for what you have done for 
my boy. If he shall be useful in the pulpit I 
shall feel that humanly speaking you have been 
blest of God as a largely contributive instru- 
ment." 

The Rev. David R. Breed, D.D., one of Dr. 



Mccormick seminary isi 

Johnson's boys in the Third Church, Pittsburgh, 
and now Professor in the Allegheny Theological 
Seminary, wrote as follows : " I am anxious to 
add my hearty congratulations to the many you 
have received and to add my fervent ' God bless 
you,' as I have often done, in my private prayers. 
Whatever you may have won of influence and 
fame elsewhere, I am sure you have never won 
more love than you did while in Pittsburgh. 
How devotedly that dear old Third Church was 
attached to you, and how the whole city admired 
you. And if those that remain of your old flock 
could have spoken at your banquet I think your 
emotion would have been even greater than it 
was. I am mighty glad they did it for you. It 
was the thing to do, but I only wish they could 
have included Mrs. Johnson. Was there ever 
sweeter, truer woman in any capacity, whether 
pastoress or parishioner, than she ? " Here is 
one from another of his Pittsburgh " boys " — a 
cousin of Mrs. Dr. Johnson, and now the emi- 
nent Dr. E. A. Reed of Holyoke, Mass. : 

"January 26, 1903. 

" My dear Pastor : 

" I have received a copy of The Interior with 
an account of the celebration of your seventieth 
birthday, which I have read with great pleasure, 
and although it is a little late, I wish to add my 
congratulations. It must have been a joyous 
event in your experience, and the remembrance 
of it will always be blessed and inspiring. I am 



132 HERRICK JOHNSON 

glad that the brethren had the good taste to 
say something while you are with us and still in 
the thick of the fight, and can easily understand 
how the wealth of admiration and love expressed 
touched your heart. I can never think of you as 
growing old, but as one full of energy, hope, and 
of achievement, even as I knew you in the old 
Pittsburgh days. The memory of those days 
often overpowers me, and I feel grateful for the 
noble impulses and inspiring thoughts which you 
gave me. And your example of hopeful and un- 
tiring labor has been an informing influence and 
power in my whole ministerial life. I rejoice in 
all the good work which our blessed Master has 
enabled you to do, and trust that you will be 
spared to the Church for many years to come. 
It seems a long time since I have looked into 
your face. With love to Cousin Kate and your- 
self, I am as ever yours, 

" E. A. Reed." 

Dr. Covert of Chicago writes : " You hear so 
perfectly that not a whisper of friendship can 
escape you — and so plainly that not a single beam- 
ing affectionate smile will be lost upon you. You 
are the best-loved man in the whole Presbyterian 
Church. You are loved because you did so much 
for the men and the Church. There is not a bit 
of glamor about the Herrick Johnson of our af- 
fections. It is the genuine old man himself who 
has us by the heart-strings. I never can pay the 



Mccormick seminary 133 



debt of love I owe you as teacher, guide, and 
friend. It will be a theme for everlasting con- 
verse on the sunny slopes of the everlasting 
hills." 

Dr. Theo. L. Cuyler writes : " Well-Beloved 
Brother, and more, too. It is only this morning, 
January 13, 1903, that I learned that you have 
marched out of the sixties with flying colors and 
have come into the seventies ! All hail S I wish 
I was back there with you, but next Saturday 
my old-time clock will strike 81 ! Herrick, my 
jewel, you have had a grand career, sound in 
heart, sound in your theology, sound in your 
staunch Presbyterianism, and blest of God in 
your untiring labors. I would like to have been 
at that dinner and poured out my soul in a love 
tribute." 

The late Dr. George W. Knox wrote Dr. 
Johnson, December 30, 1902, Pelham Manor, 
N. Y. : "I desire to add my congratulations to 
the chorus which greets you. In all my course 
of student life, I think of three or four men at 
most as influencing me, and really worthy of 
affection and grateful esteem. You already know 
that I place you high in this small group. In 
my Auburn days you were easily first and hold 
a place apart from all others. Our all too in- 
frequent meetings have been delightful to me. I 
need say nothing as to your public career. It 
has not only been distinguished by all the honors 
the Church can bestow, but far more it has 



l&fc HERRICK JOHNSON 



commanded the high respect of all for its cour- 
age, its independence, its absolute veracity, its 
true nobility, as for its intellectual success. In 
Union Seminary no man in the Church is so 
esteemed." 

Dr. William P. Merrill, now of the Brick 
Church, New York, wrote, December 15, 1902: 
" I hate to miss the gathering of your friends, for 
I am sure that no one of them can love and honor 
you more than I do. You call out one's love 
and loyalty in a rare way. I count it one of the 
vast gains of my Chicago experience that I have 
had the privilege of friendship with you. 

" You must be very happy over the returns 
from the Presbyteries on the Revision Overtures. 
Your work is certainly being crowned with suc- 
cess, and a good many of us feel that we owe the 
happy outcome very largely to you." 

Dr. Samuel I. Niccolls of the Second Church, 
St. Louis, Mo., wrote, December 15, 1902: "I 
heard last evening incidentally that you were to 
have a birthday celebration. I don't want to 
steal in uninvited, but I do want to stretch out 
my hand to you in congratulation and in love. 
I rejoice that you were born into this sore 
troubled world, and that you have lived so long 
and so well in it. I suppose if Dr. Patton's 
supralapsarian view is the correct one, that you 
could not help being what you are, and that I 
ought to rejoice ' in the decree.' But somehow 
I like to take a time view of my friends and to 



Mccormick seminary 135 



rejoice in them, and to thank God that they 
have ' fought a good fight, and have kept the 
faith.' You have come to the appointed limit of 
life in honor and power. Multitudes bless you 
for your ministry, and the Church owes you a 
debt of gratitude for your service. You will 
live another seventy years in the lives of the 
young men whom you have taught. Your min- 
istry will be multiplied more than hundred fold. 
Well, I congratulate you on a green old age, and 
for the boy that still lives in you. I trust that 
God will permit you to tarry with us many years, 
yet I know that you are anxious at times to be 
away and see our dear Lord's face." 

Dr. George B. Stewart, President of Auburn 
Theological Seminary, wrote, January 3, 1903: 
" My heart rejoices in the honor done you by 
your brethren in Chicago. You deserve it all, and 
more, too. Your life of service to the Church 
and to your fellowmen has been one of pre- 
eminent benefit. Hosts of men in the ministry 
feel that they owe a lasting debt to you. Multi- 
tudes of men and women rise up to call you 
blessed. Many more years of service to you 
here, and an eternity of it yonder." 

I greatly wish that I could quote more of these 
letters, written, as they were, right out of the 
hearts of his devoted friends and pupils. They 
reveal, as nothing else can do, why one was com- 
pelled to own in writing about Dr. Johnson that 
he was the best beloved man he knew. It was 



136 HERRICK JOHNSON 



not simply that he was an unusually strong and 
forceful teacher of homiletics, but he had a heart 
compelling power. He loved greatly and was 
loved greatly — none more so. 

To a dear friend, who had been obliged on 
account of his health to withdraw from the ac- 
tive ministry, Dr. Johnson wrote from Lake 
Mohonk, Mountain House, June 6, 1902 : 

" From this marvellous scene, looking out on 
God's everlasting hills and through an atmos- 
phere pure as heaven's own, I send you my 
heart's greeting. You are a ' shut in,' but you 
have great company, and I know you and the 
dear Master are having a good time together. 
No place can be lonely with Him! Hospital 
becomes palace, and desert a blooming garden, 
and pain gets translated into pleasure. O the 
magic of His touch ! I trust it will please Him to 
make this second enforced retirement a passage- 
way to renewed vigor and something of the old 
virile swing. Your letter was a good while 
reaching me. But I hasten to send a message 
into your retreat and to assure you of my love 
and sympathy. Katie joins me in the heartiest 
remembrance, and we will make mention of you 
often in our talks with God. Mohonk is still 
the peerless place, and to-day it seems more 
beautiful than ever. I wish you and your wife 
could run up here for a day or two, on your way 
to your summer resting-place. Now that Revi- 



Mccormick seminary isi 



sion is on the sure road to constitutional stand- 
ing in our beloved Zion and the ' brief statement 
of the Reformed Faith ' is here to stay, I am 
ready to sing with good old Simeon ' Nunc 
dimittis ! ' Good-bye, brave, great heart, good- 
bye. 

" Affectionately, Herrick." 

In January, 1903, Dr. Johnson quoted this 
verse on " Bright Things " : 

" When you see a sky of blue 
Think that sky was made for you; 
When the breeze bends down the trees 
You just think that that's your breeze; 
Every blessed drop of dew 
Falls upon the rose for you." 

To which he added this verse of his own : 

"When clouds sweep a blackened sky 
Think God's cloud of mercy nigh; 
When the breeze roots up the trees 
You just think that that's your breeze; 
Every storm and stress and sting 
Is God's way of bettering." 

On April 8, 1903, he wrote to a familiar 
friend : 

". . . Yes, e'en down to old age, I find it 
hard to get any leisure. It almost seems as if I 
were never quite so busy in all my life as this past 
winter. For one thing my assistant (a fine, rare 
young fellow, by-the-by, with as fine a wife and 



138 HERRICK JOHNSON 



cluster of blossoming children as I ever knew) 
was taken with pneumonia before the holidays, 
and is still very weak, and will be unable to do 
any seminary tasks until we open in the fall. I 
have had his entire work since the middle of last 
December. Through adjustment made with 
him at the beginning of the year, I had been 
counting on large leisure after the holiday re- 
cess and partly on this account I had made a 
number of outside engagements, which I could 
not very well break without serious disappoint- 
ment to the parties interested. Caught between 
these two seas, it looks as if I should be sub- 
merged. But thanks to a gracious Providence, a 
resolute will, and some gumption and more grit, 
I have pulled through, and it looks now as if 
Commencement would be passed without any- 
thing like a break. The banquet was, of course, 
an occasion for great gratitude and great joy, 
and great humility. I never dreamed of what 
was coming in its fulness. 

" The letters from ' the boys ' were literally 
from around the world, and utterly unexpected, 
and a dear surprise; they came pouring in even 
weeks after the ' function ' was over, and Katie 
has arranged them in a scrapbook, making a 
volume of signs and tokens of a dear and death- 
less regard beyond all price. Through this and 
all other scenes and experiences and trial and 
triumphs since the day Katie and I went Maying 
by Owasco Lake, she has gone with me, my 



Mccormick seminary 139 



pride and joy. Next to the gift of His own 
Son, another ever blessed Spirit, do you think 
God has ever given either of us anything com- 
parable with the bride He helped us woo and 
win forty-odd years ago? Well, we are in the 
sunset land now and it is very beautiful, and 
for the hope as well as the memory that is in 
me, I could cry for joy. I love to think of the 
dearer intimacies of your own kith and kin of 
two or three generations. Ah ! those children ! 
and the children of the children! Ah, me! I 
wonder if God won't balance things when we get 
to the city ' whose streets are to be full of boys 
and girls, playing in the streets thereof.' Do 
you remember Charles Lamb's talk about the first 
baby in heaven? Perhaps Katie and I may have 
two or three of the elect little tots ' dying in 
infancy ' whose parents were unworthy of 
heaven — these little ones, these outward breath- 
ing types that so soon into stillness passed 
again. Perhaps God will give us two or three 
as our very own when we go home, but where 
are my thoughts running? Do not forget to tell 
McGirTert and Knox and the Gillets that I think 
of them with loving interest. What a shame 
that McGirTert is not in our Presbyterian fold. 
The old liners are still trying to mop out the 
Atlantic. " Herrick." 

In May, 1905, the McCormick family nobly 
endowed the seminary with one million dollars 



140 HERRICK JOHNSON 



in addition to all that they had already given, as 
a perpetual memorial of the founder of the 
family, Cyrus H. McCormick, the distinguished 
inventor and great benefactor. The donation, 
made through three members of the family, was 
as follows : Mrs. Nettie Fowler McCormick, 
$750,000; Cyrus H. McCormick, her son, $125,- 
000; Harold F. McCormick, her son, $125,000; 
total $1,000,000. 

With this came the gratifying announcement 
that the Trustees had secured the distinguished 
and able Dr. James G. K. McClure as its Presi- 
dent. " He is peculiarly adapted for the important 
duties he now assumes, and no man could have 
been chosen better equipped to put to the best 
uses the liberal endowment of the McCormick 
family. A new chair has been added, that of 
the 1 Science and Art of Preaching/ and it will 
be filled by Dr. Herrick Johnson, who retires 
from the chair of Homiletics and Pastoral Theo- 
logy. He thus secures the letting up of the 
severe pressure which for so many years his 
professional duties laid on him." Two years be- 
fore this his new volume of Sermons from 
Love to Praise was issued, a book greatly 
prized and expressing the loftiest thought. 

Dr. Johnson at first opposed very strongly the 
Book of Common Worship as prepared by a 
Committee of Ministers and Elders of the Pres- 
byterian Church, who worked on the volume for 
three years. For some time he wrote against it; 



Mccormick seminary 141 



but as he had come to see at the time of the 
McKinley Campaign that true patriotism called 
for his giving up his adherence to the Prohibition 
party and voting for McKinley and that the posi- 
tion which he had taken on the " Two kinds of 
wine, in the Bible " was not really scriptural, he 
with fine candor owned his mistake. So with 
that open-mindedness which had come to be the 
beautiful and ennobling characteristic of his old 
age, he withdrew his opposition to the Book of 
Common Worship, and stood for it, for the rest 
of his life. 

Dr. Johnson's commemoration address at the 
McCormick Theological Seminary, 1905, was 
really the close of his great career of twenty-five 
years as the greatest teacher of Homiletics and 
Pastoral Theology of his time : " It was brilliant, 
tender, and impressive." He took for his theme 
The Man, the Institution, and the Field. " In 
the first as he presented the ideal man, in great 
part he unconsciously portrayed such a one as 
he himself is recognized to be by all who know 
him. His second division of his theme seemed 
prophetic of the Seminary's future under the new 
conditions now opening. The ideal field under 
the third head was one that called out the best 
that was in a student, and aroused him to the 
fullest development of his powers." 

It was following this, that Dr. Johnson's re- 
tirement began. This personal letter reveals his 
own experience in that event. 



142 HERRICK JOHNSON 



" June 23, 1905. 
" Your good word is like a gentle breeze waft- 
ing odors from a flower garden. If you write 
from your summer home on the Island, I shall 
expect the smell of the sea shore flung by a stiff 
breeze from off old ocean. So I would have 
been a great sinner, would I? Well, I don't 
want to be any bigger sinner than I am now, 
and the only satisfaction I can get from the 
situation is that the bigness makes grace big. 
Do you know, I am going to join you in a new 
sense ? You say you ' are no longer in the ac- 
tive service/ Me, too! My resignation from 
all seminary position and work goes to the 
Executive Committee of the Board to-day. My 
physician says I must say good-bye to all obli- 
gatory work from this time on to the end. Work, 
he orders, but only when you feel like it. Let all 
work be optional, and not enforced, appointed, 
obligatory. Expert opinion corroborates and en- 
forces this with emphasis. So I am done with 
McCormick homiletics. It has been a blessed 
twenty-five years of toil. ' The boys ' made an 
evening of it Commencement week, and I was 
loaded with good things, though they didn't 
come from around the world, as they did on the 
occasion of the celebrating of the seventieth an- 
niversary of my birthday. Well, God has been 
exceedingly good to me, and has strewn life's 
path with countless and most blessed gifts, 
among the chief of which and next only to my 



Mccormick seminary i^b 



Savior, I count my Katie, and Charlie, — Charlie, 
dear old comrade of college and seminary days 
and my life lover now these fifty years, — God 
has indeed blessed us in our wives. He has let 
us keep them well-nigh half a century." 

As Dr. Johnson retired from the active duties 
of seminary life, Dr. J. G. K. McClure en- 
tered upon the new office of the President of 
the Seminary, a man beloved by all, and singu- 
larly fitted, by nature and culture and rich expe- 
rience, for his position. His coming to the King- 
dom for such a time as that was peculiarly grati- 
fying to Dr. Johnson, who loved him as a father 
might love a son. I quote the appropriate tribute 
to Dr. Johnson at his retirement. " Although the 
directors in their justifiable desire to keep him in 
connection with the seminary provided him with 
a lecture chair in which he will give occasional in- 
struction, yet his regular work of teaching the 
classes the principles and art of sermon making 
is done and hereafter he and Mrs. Johnson will 
spend their winters in a less rigorous climate than 
that of Chicago. 

" And what teaching it has been that he has 
given to his classes for these many years. How 
clean cut and clear in principle and how well 
illustrated in practice. Few of our able preach- 
ers have known so well as Dr. Johnson how to 
build a sermon that would stand solid on its 
foundation and rise symmetrical and beautiful 



144 HERRICK JOHNSON 



to its fretted roof and gilded spire, how to temper 
the blade and give it a cutting edge that will 
cleave through a subject and open its heart. The 
chief power and value of a great teacher is his 
contagion; his boys catch his mental processes 
and enthusiasm, even some of his genius. Dr. 
Johnson is richly endowed with this power of 
contagion. He is radiating light and heat all 
the time, emitting sparks and flashes that kindle 
the minds of his students. It is a great work 
that he has done out there in Chicago, and it will 
abide long after he is gone. But he is not gone 
yet, and as long as he is here he will be heard 
from. Long may he remain to instruct and de- 
light us. The tremendous applause with which 
the 1 boys ' greeted him at the recent Com- 
mencement was only the echo of the esteem in 
which he is held throughout the church." 

Here is his " Message to the Aged," sent by 
him at the request of the Rev. Nathan D. Hynson, 
then the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church 
of Horsesheads, Pa., to the " Annual Fall Serv- 
ice for the Aged." For its tender beauty it must 
be preserved in this record. " Dear Fellow Pil- 
grims : We are going down the evening slope of 
life. The shadows are a little longer grown than 
they were a year ago. But that means nearer 
the heavenly morning and eternal day with God. 
The most of us made terms with Him a good 
while ago. He has never broken His word with 
one of us. We don't mean to break our word 



Mccormick seminary 



145 



with Him. Clearer grows the face we love most, 
dearer the fellowship He invites and furnishes, 
nearer ready the abiding place He is preparing 
for us. Dearly beloved old saints of God, we are 
almost home ! Jesus, lover of my soul ! When 
the hour for putting off this tabernacle comes, 
' let me to Thy bosom fly/ " 

Just here the action of the Directors of Mc- 
Cormick Theological Seminary in view of Dr. 
Johnson's resignation may be fitly recorded : 

" The Directors of McCormick Theological 
Seminary are in receipt of the resignation of the 
Rev. Professor Herrick Johnson, D.D., from the 
chair of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, ac- 
companied by a personal statement of the reasons 
that lead him to ask a complete severance of 
all teaching relations with the Seminar} 7 . In 
view of the reasons urged and the insistence of 
Dr. Johnson upon immediate action, the Board 
accepts the resignation and releases him from 
the chair he has honored with such distinction 
for more than a quarter of a century. 

" In accepting the resignation of Dr. Johnson, 
the Directors desire to recognize the eminent 
quality and abiding character of the work of Dr. 
Johnson in his Seminary chair during his long 
incumbency and also acknowledge the large 
part his labors and forceful personality have 
had in the upbuilding of McCormick Theological 
Seminary. 

M His signal ability in his chosen chair, his af- 



146 HERRICK JOHNSON 



fectionate relation to his students, together with 
his preeminence in service in the Church at 
large, have wrought influentially to endow the 
Seminary with its present conspicuity and power. 

" The Directors express to Dr. Johnson its 
deep sense of gratitude for his tireless devotion 
to every interest of the Seminary throughout the 
years of his connection with it and record their 
regret in being compelled by his own urgent 
demands to release him from active service in 
the Faculty. The Directors desire to assure Dr. 
Johnson, as he passes to an emeritus relation, 
of their earnest prayers for his prolonged health, 
and a long continuance of his honored name in 
connection with the Seminary. 

(Signed) 

" Wm. C. Covert, 
"D. W. Fisher, 
"C. H. Holt." 



VII 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME, 
1905-19x3 

" Grow old along with me ! 
The best is yet to be, 

The last of life for which the first was made. 
Our times are in His hand 
Who saith ' A whole I planned/ 
Youth shows but half: trust God, 

Nor be afraid." 

— Browning. 

DR. and Mrs. Johnson moved about May, 
1905, from their residence on the 
Campus of McCormick Seminary to the 
Plaza near the Lake shore, as Mrs. Johnson 
had become helpless and could no longer have 
the care of housekeeping. She was taken in the 
summer to Mount Clemens, with the hope that 
the waters would be beneficial. 

But her husband wrote : " They did nothing 
for her and she came back as she went out — car- 
ried from her room to the cars and from the cars 
to her room. Some wonderful cures are effected 
by that remedial agency, but it did nothing for the 
dear patient sufferer. We were at a sanitarium 
and had every possible care, from the finest 
body of trained nurses I ever saw, and we are 
147 



148 HERRICK JOHNSON 



fortunate on our return in getting back the 
trained nurses that we left here when we went 
to Mount Clemens. Our new quarters at the 
Plaza are a great improvement on the old, and 
so far as appointments are concerned, as to 
nurse and rooms and physician, we have every- 
thing that could well be desired. Well, beloved 
friend, this evening slope of life, with all its 
limitations, is very sweet and beautiful. Life's 
sunsets may be as full of glory as nature's. I 
hope to get out a book or two soon, that in some 
way may be a comfort to the bruised, and a help 
and stay to God's many workers. 

" Herrick/' 

Here is another cherished letter I received at 
the time: 

" The Plaza, Chicago, February 18, 1906. 
" It seems a good while since we have had a 
dose of old-time fellowship. Come now, let 
us reason together or muse aloud a while or get 
on to the wireless telegraphy or call up some 
power from the vasty deep that will put us in 
touch with each other. Knox (G. W.) wrote 
me some time ago that he was coming on here 
to lecture at the University of Chicago, and 
would try to see me. I at once replied that see- 
ing him would be a dear joy, and he came and 
called, and we talked of many things and per- 
sons (for I have been pleasantly tied to Knox 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 149 



in many ways and hold him in a very dear re- 
gard), and he told me something of you and 
3*ours, but he did not let me into the innermost, 
where I always want to go. when you are up 
for consideration, and I am longing to know 
how time and the dear Lord are dealing with you 
and yours. 

" Perhaps you know that Katie has been a 
prisoner in the bonds of rheumatism for many 
months and virtually helpless. Away back in 
April, last, she was caught in the grip of this 
tenacious, pertinacious, and by no means 
gracious thing, and has scarcely put her feet to 
the floor since. But through these long, weary 
months she has been a brave, patient sufferer, 
sometimes measurably free from pain and never 
suffering in that excruciating way which some- 
times is the lot of rheumatics, but never free 
from aching joints, and a soreness that now and 
then spreads over her entire body. We had a 
plan for last summer and fall that included 
Mohunk and the Maine coast and Atlantic City, 
with an indefinite stay at the latter place : but 
Katie's condition broke it all up. and contrary 
to all expectation I came back to Chicago only 
to find no provision made for my chair, save the 
distribution of a small portion of the work among 
the other Professors and the Faculty clamorous 
for my resumption of the old duties, so I have 
been doing three or four hours a week through 
the year. I close this work this week, and then 



150 HERRICK JOHNSON 



I shall be free to go where it seems best to go, 
and promises most for the relief of the dear old 
Darling, who has been my pride and joy so 
many years. Do you remember when I took her 
for * better, for worse, till death us do part ' in 
Auburn forty-six years ago? What blessed 
crowning years they have been of love and fel- 
lowship! What awaits us of joy or sorrow, of 
pain or pleasure, of life or death we do not know, 
and do not need to know. We know, don't we, 
dear old boy? We know that our Redeemer 
liveth, and that we shall see Him face to face. 
" As ever, with love from us both, 

" Herrick." 

Later on he wrote (November 14, 1906,) as 
follows : " Just a word from out the silence to 
tell you that we have spent the entire summer 
here in our rooms at the Plaza, on the south 
border of Lincoln Park, and only about three 
squares from the Lake, that we have been very 
comfortable, and that Katie is still an invalid 
and in rheumatic bonds, but with a patience and 
trust and peace that old Rheumatics can't break 
and legions of devils can't destroy. They are 
from the dear Lord and as beautiful to see as 
they are prophetic of the land that is not so 
very ' far off/ and whose inhabitants never say, 
' I am sick/ We see no special change in her 
condition, week by week, the lapses and the 
gains about keeping the balances so that the 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 151 



average state is about the same, month in and 
out. I read a good deal to her, she sleeps quite 
well, and has a fair appetite, but gains no 
strength, and with respect to many things is 
virtually helpless. About the only writing she is 
equal to is a pencilled letter now and then, a 
brief, and sometimes almost illegible, scrawl to 
her only living sister, Mrs. Waldo. Once and a 
while she manages to get a word written to one 
or two of her old friends and correspondents, 
but she can hardly hold a pencil, and only uses 
it at all with some weariness and pain. She has 
not walked alone for a year, and has not been on 
her feet for months. 

" But we have had lots of blessed fellowship 
with each other, and trust, with our Lord, in 
this long ' shut-in ' period, and it has not been 
without its blessed compensations. She sends a 
tender message of love and greeting to you both. 
It was well that I gave up my work at the 
Seminary last year, and insisted on absolute 
resignation. Hill, of Portland, and one of ' my 
boys/ is in my chair, and making his first im- 
pressions, and they give promise of fine things in 
the whole field of applied theology. McClure, 
our President, takes Pastoral Theology and 
Church Government, and our Seminary ought 
to do a great work for God and our beloved 
Church in the next half-century. 

" Of course, if within the possibilities every 
living man of 1857 will be at Hamilton next 



152 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Commencement. Be there, old boy (Deo vo- 
lente), and let us make it a reunion worth while. 
Do you know that it is also the seventy-fifth 
anniversary of the organization of Alpha Delta 
Phi ? What a blaze of glory ought to be lighted 
on the old hill. 

" HERRICK." 

In 1907 he took up the work of revising his 
remarkable lectures, which hundreds of his 
students wanted him to publish, preparing 
them to appear in a book which was most ap- 
propriately named " The Ideal Ministry." At 
the time of its appearance I reviewed it in the 
Christian Work and Evangelist, the substance of 
which I here quote : 

DR. JOHNSON'S " IDEAL MINISTRY " 

The ministry at large will regard the oppor- 
tunity of possessing this book by the Rev. Dr. 
Herrick Johnson as a peculiar privilege ; for Dr. 
Johnson's work has not been done in a corner. 
An impassioned, able, and eloquent leader in that 
branch of the great church to which he has 
devoted his life, his distinguished career is famil- 
iar far beyond its bounds. Those who have been 
under the spell of his powerful and persuasive 
preaching, both in his pastorates and when he 
has appeared year after year in the foremost 
pulpits of the great central cities of our land, and 
who have known of his extraordinary success as 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 153 



a teacher of homiletics in two of the leading 
theological seminaries of the Presbyterian Church 
will be glad to get at something of the secret of 
his power, which this book, as far as possible, 
furnishes. And his many pupils, scattered all 
over the world, will hail with joy this opportunity 
to secure permanently his entire system of homi- 
letics. 

They can never forget the white heat of fervor 
kindled in their souls by his inspiring personality 
as a teacher, and by his mastery of all those 
sources of intellectual, moral, and spiritual power 
which brought them to his feet. Not to draw 
comparisons with other great books by distin- 
guished authors and masters of this subject, we 
do not hesitate to state that it stands in the very 
front rank. 

Dr. Johnson is no mere theorist, as some pro- 
fessors of homiletics may be, who have had no 
marked personal experience of success in the 
ministry. His fifteen years in three great pas- 
torates gave him a rich and varied experience, 
out of which to begin his homiletic teaching, when 
Auburn Theological Seminary called him. At 
once the young men felt the thrill and power of 
this man, who had come to that chair, not because 
he had failed as a preacher, but because, with the 
greatest success in the ministry, he realized what 
an opportunity was thus afforded him to show 
the hundreds of students who would come to him 
how God would use and bless them as thoroughly 



154 HERRICK JOHNSON 



equipped and devoted preachers of the Gospel. 
Men like Stryker, Stewart, Knox, Riggs, Bab- 
cock, Merle Smith, Dickinson, and many others 
have ever cherished as their highest privilege the 
opportunity afforded them in that Auburn lecture 
room. His had been a ministry of large in- 
gatherings. Young men like Breed and Reed in 
his church at Pittsburgh were brought to the 
Master under the persuasive power of his minis- 
try, and won to the preaching of the truth, at the 
time of precious outpourings of the Holy Spirit 
in that church. And when, on account of the 
health of his wife, he was forced literally to tear 
himself away from Pittsburgh, where he was al- 
most idolized by both young and old in his church, 
he found, in his year of apparent exile to Mar- 
quette, on the shores of Lake Superior, a new 
baptism of power, accompanied with a revival in 
that little church, where he was supplying the 
pulpit for that time, which for intensity and 
spiritual power will never be forgotten. The 
writer of this article, who has had the privilege 
of intimate acquaintance with Dr. Johnson from 
college days, still cherishes the letters written 
under the glow and joy of that great blessing. 
In the enthusiasm of his young life he would go 
off to the solitary shore of that great lake to 
prepare for those services night after night, 
singing as he went that hymn born of the great 
revival of 1857, and which fairly swept through 
the church to a permanent place in her great 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 155 



hymnology, " He Leadeth Me, Oh Blessed 
Thought." 

It was from that notable revival that Albert 
Barnes called him to Philadelphia to a ministry 
similarly blest of God. So that, when he stepped 
from the throne of that great pulpit to the Chair 
of Homiletics at Auburn, which he turned also 
into a throne, he gave to his teaching the charm, 
grip, and spirit of a consecrated successful 
ministry. 

It was not strange that Chicago, the metropolis 
of the Central West, wanted him, and would not 
listen to a refusal; and the result of his work 
there for the twenty-five years of his service to 
the Lord in McCormick Theological Seminary 
showed the wisdom of the West in placing him 
there in the chair, where, for a quarter of a cen- 
tury, he wielded such extraordinary power, as is 
explained in part by this remarkable volume, A 
Comprehensive Handbook on Homiletics. Un- 
der God it may be truthfully claimed that he has 
changed, and lifted up to a very much higher 
standard the character of the preaching through- 
out the Northwest. Many young men, like 
Stevenson of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian 
Church, responded to the full to the inspiring 
quality and character of his teaching, and hail 
him as their master in the great art of preaching 
the Gospel. And this book gives, as nearly as 
possible, his secret. It is not only a thesaurus 
of knowledge about homiletics, but it reveals the 



156 HERRICK JOHNSON 



great heart of the man himself. Some who 
have known Dr. Johnson only as they have 
crossed swords with him in memorable debates in 
church courts have perhaps felt that, with his 
power as a logical debater, he had more brain 
than heart. But those who sat under his min- 
istry, and at his feet in the lecture room know 
how his strong and brilliant intellect is illumined, 
and heated hot with the glowing, inexhaustible 
fires of his heart. Those who know him best, 
who know how he has loved and loves, call him 
" Great Heart," and this book shows it. It gives 
a keen intellectual analysis of all the sources of 
power in the ministry, it masters that depart- 
ment of it, and it is pervaded with a glow of 
love for God and man, of devotion to Jesus the 
Christ, and of a passionate longing to save men, 
which is a very sacred revelation of the inward 
life of the author. In his last lecture, " The 
Sermon — Why Not a Soul Winner," he says : 
" What if each preacher of the Word should call 
the roll of his sermons, say five years back; the 
text, topic, and the dominant purpose of each. 
How many of them would bear this characteri- 
zation : ' Filled with a mighty persuasiveness ; a 
sermon that was after a soul ? ' " In another 
lecture on " The Sermon's Ideal Topics," he 
says : " The preacher's aim is salvation in the 
highest sense : reconstruction of manhood. The 
preacher is to reach and find his man, and then 
build him up in Christ Jesus. This is his * con- 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 157 



stant absorbing.' inspiring purpose, and it has 
only one possible way of accomplishment by 
the truth of God as accompanied by the Spirit 
of God. The Holy Spirit convicts and sanctifies 
men only by the truth — and by the truth not as 
it is in Socrates, or Plato, or the stars, or the 
philosophies — but as it is in Jesus — the Christ." 

In the lecture on " The Sermon's Ideal Con- 
stants " he quotes Ruskin's famous sentence 
about the preacher's opportunity, " Thirty 
minutes to raise the dead in ! "' and then adds 
these words : " Once understand this, and a 
man's whole soul will go out into his sermon 
every week, and into the effort to make it all it 
ought to be as a word of eternal life and death." 
The author's loving loyalty to the Great Head 
of the Church, and his consuming love for the 
souls of men flame through this book in a way 
to startle men who are in the ministry for half- 
hearted service, viz. : " Next to a knowledge of 
God's Word what can help a preacher so much 
as a knowledge of the human nature that is be- 
fore him thinking, feeling, wondering, hunger- 
ing, yearning, doubting, hating ? ' Know thyself.' 
But know others also. Psychology is important 
here. But mix with men. Be observant. Get 
at their dispositions. Discover their prejudices 
and needs. Learn what they are thinking about. 
Do not leave humanity outside of the study, or 
at the foot of the pulpit steps. Let its wants set 
back into the sermon, and determine the ser- 



158 HERRICK JOHNSON 



mon's bent. Touch with the touch of personal 
presence and companionship its great throbbing 
heart." Here is something in the same lecture 
on the use of the classified text-book which 
cannot be passed by : " Jot down in it . . . all 
texts that seem laden with new riches as they 
go flying by. If the text-book is not within 
reach use a piece of paper, an old envelope — 
anything to make it sure that the thought and 
its treatment will not be lost. These texts that 
are brought down as it were ' on the wing/ that 
flash unbidden to the view, and grow luminous 
on the instant are almost like inspirations, and 
sermonizing on them will be like the sweep of 
the eagle cleaving the air with his strong 
pinions." 

To Dr. Johnson there are just two compre- 
hensive principles which make up the entire 
substance of the Gospel commission. To rescue 
men from spiritual death, and to build them up 
in spiritual life. He claims that as a result from 
working faithfully along the lines of these two 
principles all that is involved in the redemption 
of human society in its widest sense, is included. 
" Social connections will be revolutionized, gov- 
ernment will be made pure and peaceable, right- 
eousness will increasingly prevail, ethical values 
will have wider and wider recognition, clean 
homes and clean streets and clean politics will 
come to be the universal order, and the kingdom 
of heaven on earth will at last witness in its 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 159 



completeness to ' the manifold (variegated) wis- 
dom of God.' " We commend this extract to 
such as hold that orthodox doctrine and preach- 
ing are unproductive of or do not minister to 
the vast interests of civil and social life; and to 
such especially as regard settlement work with- 
out definite Christian teaching as best calculated 
to redeem and enrich the great seething, suffer- 
ing centres of Christless communities. As if 
men trained by a teaching that denies to them 
a knowledge of and personal love for, and faith 
in the glorious Son of God, could ever come to 
their best, or human society be brought to its 
divine ideal. There is a subtle temptation lurk- 
ing on every page of this most inspiring volume 
to quote what one would want never to forget, 
which has to be resisted, or this article will go 
far beyond its proper bounds. 

The book, as to its printing and binding, 
is exceedingly well done. The clear, clean 
printing makes its reading delightful. We 
must particularly commend the author's sane 
and readable punctuation, acquired undoubtedly 
from the Mandevillian system, which he studied 
at Hamilton College. And it is something to 
consider carefully in these days of the submer- 
gence of the comma, the absurd misuse of the 
semicolon, the disappearance of the colon, and 
the wide dominion of the " dash." The striking 
picture of Dr. Johnson on the cover of the book 
will please every one, and cause the cover to 



160 HERRICK JOHNSON 



be cherished with more care than such slipping 
and cumbrous essentials usually receive. 

The writer of this article is confident that 
the charm and fascination which he has found 
in this truly great work, and the flame which 
goes from it through his soul lies not merely in 
the fact that its author has been a life-long be- 
loved friend, and not merely in the book itself, 
but preeminently " in the man behind " the 
book. 

The preparation of this work for the press 
was carried on in the midst of the deepest 
anxiety over the condition of his beloved wife, 
who passed away before it was finished, to the 
great grief of a large number of most affection- 
ate friends, throughout the country. Miss Hal- 
sey, of the Women's Board of Foreign Missions, 
of Chicago, said, on learning of her death : " I 
have always esteemed my friendship with Mrs. 
Johnson as one of the privileges of my life. 
Here was one of the sweetest, rarest, purest, 
strongest spirits that ever blessed the world. I 
met her years ago on the train going to our an- 
nual meeting, and from that time she admitted 
me into the inner circle of her intimate friends. 
With a beautiful mind, trained to the highest 
degree of culture, with unusual gifts, both in 
speech and writing, she was yet so unassuming, 
so unconscious apparently of her rare mental 
development. Aside from her intellectuality, her 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 161 



marked characteristic was her tenderness. This 
tenderness made her voice wonderfully sympa- 
thetic. Every one who has ever heard her read 
her little poems will remember this quality that 
made it so expressive. She was an admirable 
presiding officer, calm, cool, self-poised, with 
full knowledge of parliamentary rulings, ready 
for any emergency, and yet magnetic and sym- 
pathetic, quick to perceive an opportunity and 
seize it to give life and color to the sessions. 
She had a remarkable voice for public speaking, 
clear and sweet-toned, never high pitched or 
loud, yet in its rare carrying quality, without 
seeming effort, heard, however large the audi- 
torium. 

" The qualities that characterized her through 
life shone out with added radiance during the 
two years and a half she was laid aside upon a 
bed of suffering. To those who were admitted 
to the intimacy of her sick-room, it was a mount 
from which were caught glimpses of the Celes- 
tial City, to which her eyes were ever turning. 
Those who have nursed her bear testimony to 
the unfailing cheerfulness that made her pres- 
ence a benediction. To him, sorely bereft, who 
has walked by her side so many years in per- 
fect union of heart and mind and work, our 
hearts go out with tenderest sympathy. Theirs 
was an ideal marriage. 

" When they were young people in the East, 
and the physicians' verdict was that the bracing 



162 HERRICK JOHNSON 



air of the Northern lake might restore her to 
health, Dr. Johnson resigned his charge that 
he might go with her to Marquette. On being 
remonstrated with by a friend about this, as 
he thought sacrificing a career, he said : 1 What 
is a career to me if I lose her?' She has been 
spared to him for many years, an inspiration 
to others as well as to him. She has passed over 
the boundary into a fulness of life that even 
she, with her deep spiritual insight, could never 
have imagined. In her own words, I cannot say, 
and I will not say that she is dead, she is just 
away. 

" ' With a tender smile and a wave of the hand 
She has entered into that unknown land; 
And left us wondering how very fair 
That land must be since she lingers there.' " 

" A voice in the twilight 99 had become a voice 
in the full light. Mrs. Herrick Johnson, whose 
gentle voice had been wise and eloquent in mis- 
sionary councils, gifted with lyric and comfort- 
ing powers in verse, and brilliant and tender 
in personal touch, had gone from a life of in- 
validism, conquered by amazing inward renewal 
day by day, and from two years of help- 
less pain and spiritual growth and beauty, to 
the place where there is no more sickness nor 
any pain. 

Two are more than one and one. Herrick 
Johnson would have been one of the great- 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 163 



est preachers, writers, reformers, ecclesiastics, 
theological teachers, and personal friends even 
if he had stood alone; and Mrs. Johnson 
would have been a star of Christian womanhood, 
shining and leading lesser ones in their true 
orbits, even if she had stood alone. But who 
can estimate the increment of intellectual and 
spiritual and social power for good that came to 
each from the ideal union of two such concord- 
ant minds and spirits? The romance of her 
life came to her when she met Herrick Johnson 
as a young divinity student at Auburn, and at 
the background of his distinguished career in 
the church there has all the while run the sweet 
history of a lovers' honeymoon, which only death 
could end. The funeral at Chicago was con- 
ducted by Dr. Johnson's colleagues in the Semi- 
nary Faculty, and the venerable professor bore 
the loved dust away to inter it in the quiet city 
in New York State where his good angel en- 
tered his life. 

Of course this broke up the beautiful home 
he had had with this rare companion and gifted 
wife, and the door that was open to him was to 
go to his half-sister, Mrs. Oscar Gray of St. 
Louis, Mo., whose early education had been a 
dear charge of his, and whose home in her youth 
was with him. They were tenderly attached. 
Her home at St. Louis, Mo., was thrown open to 
him, and from the address and other places he 
wrote me the letters which immediately follow: 



164 HERRICK JOHNSON 



" 4443 W. Belle Place, 
" St. Louis, Mo., May 8th, 1908. 
" I thank you for your kind and characteristic 
reply to my last. This is to tell you where I 
am — here in old St. Louis. The city of Saint 
Samuel Niccolls and the home of my sister, Mrs. 
Mary Gray. Mollie was in my home several 
years at Troy and Pittsburgh, and now she has 
turned the tables on me, and has me at her 
home. I shall be here awhile at least and pos- 
sibly till I go to ' the House not made with 
hands, eternal in the Heavens/ The Ideal Min- 
istry is to be out in time for the Assembly, and 
I have ordered a copy sent to you. I trust you 
will like it. It would have been worth a good 
deal to me if some such books had been placed in 
my hands when I entered Auburn Seminary. 
May you find it interesting enough to go through 
its pages. If I should go East this summer, is 
there a place where we could meet for hobnob- 
bing and reminiscence? It may be that I will 
visit some of my old haunts, where my beloved 
and I went not ' a-Maying,' but ' a-Julying/ or 
'Augusting ' in the olden golden days. As ever, 

" Herrick." 

On June 10, 1908, he wrote again, also from 
St. Louis: 

" Yes, I remember the old Seminary days, 
made doubly dear to me now. Auburn gave me 
my Katie and my theology and some eternal 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 165 



friendships. It was then I first absorbed Dick- 
ens and fell in love with Mrs. Browning. You 
are so generously appreciative of my book that 
I shall have to read some searching, drastic 
criticisms of it to keep the balances. 

" Oh, yes, we would have been better preach- 
ers if we had been brought up on richer homiletic 
diet. But God be praised for what we had, and 
Broadus and Beecher, F. W. Robertson and Bur- 
ton and others have been mighty helps since. I 
would give lots to meet you, old boy, and it may 
be that we can arrange for a meeting. But as I 
take my sister with me East, I must somewhat 
regard her wishes and tastes, as well as my own. 
My stay here is made most comforting and peace- 
ful by the thoughtful interest of my beloved sis- 
ter. Mrs. Gray. But I hardly know yet where 
I shall find a permanent home. Heaven will 
open to me some day. Meanwhile I mean to 
trust and love and patiently wait. 

" In the dear old bonds, 

" Herrick." 

From Lake Mohunk, August 2, 1908, he 
writes : 

" We, my sister and I, are in this wonderfully 
beautiful region, where Katie and I used to 
come in the summering days and where some 
of our dearest delights were had. We shall be 
here through the month of August. I tried to 
make it possible to be with you a few days, but 



166 HERRICK JOHNSON 



circumstances are sometimes mightier than re- 
solves. We were at Saratoga a couple of weeks, 
and amid the hallowed associations of that old 
resort of ours I had many and precious thoughts 
of my beloved. They are tearing old Temple 
Grove to pieces, making a kind of apartment 
house of it for young women, in connection 
with an industrial and art school, founded in the 
village by a wealthy woman of Saratoga. But I 
found a sort of fascinating satisfaction in crawl- 
ing and climbing about the old building, to get 
into rooms Katie and I occupied so many sum- 
mers. My sister and I stopped at Dr. Strong's. 

" Well, here also, in the midst of the Mohunk 
glories and beauties, memories are stirred by 
the associations. This was one of our favorite 
resorts, and it is as near an earthly paradise as 
anything I know, a great stretch of picturesque 
loveliness, where Katie and I walked and talked 
and communed with one another and with na- 
ture and with God. Oh, the memories! and 
the hopes ! 

" Oceans of love to you both. 

" Herrick." 

Back again to his sister's home in St. Louis, 
he wrote, September 1 1 : 

" Your delightful letter made me regret the 
more our failure to get together this summer. I 
longed to see you. Our stay at Saratoga and 
Mohunk was very enjoyable, both sweetened 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 167 



and saddened by precious memories. I did want 
to have a visit with you by the sea shore, but it 
was out of the question. 

" I am back here with my sister, and am con- 
templating a run to Chicago on Monday. The 
Seminary opens on Tuesday, and I find myself 
longing to be at the services in the Seminary 
Chapel. I shall only stay a day or two in all 
probability, and what I shall permanently deter- 
mine upon is altogether uncertain. The ties that 
bind me to the Seminary are very precious, and 
the associations of twenty-eight years are very 
strong. I don't quite take to establishing new 
ties. My sister, Mrs. Gray, is kindness itself, 
ready to respond to my slightest wish and full 
of love and tenderness. The Waldos have 
moved to Urbana, where their son is now Pro- 
fessor in the Illinois State University. Mrs. 
Waldo was greatly fatigued by the journey, but 
is resting and rallying fairly well. But it will 
not be long before she will go to her Lord, and 
the four Hardenburg sisters will be together. 
I am wondering and wondering what new things 
God has in store for them who love Him. I 
often wonder what people are made of who 
think Heaven simply a place of mossy banks and 
flowing rivers and gentle zephyrs. Good-bye, 
old boy. Love to your wife, and a hearty wish 
that the evening slope of life may give you both 
an uninterrupted vision of golden glory. 

" Aff'y., Herrick." 



168 HERRICK JOHNSON 



" I find my heart leaning your way to-night, so 
I'll let my pen wag your way, too. I am won- 
dering how you both are. I have no doubt that 
you are in the midst of plans and gifts and wishes 
and prayers anticipative of Christmas. How 
my Katie used to anticipate the glad day, and 
devise and arrange so that a wide circle came 
to be included in her holiday remembrance. And 
to the very last she kept up the blessed business, 
even when the physical weakness made the task 
almost too great for her. This last year has 
been a sad sweet year, full of memories most 
precious and of hopes most inspiring, and the 
angel of my heart seemed never so beautiful in 
all the years of our wedded life as during the 
months I have walked on alone. I am often 
wondering if Katie knows! I know the dear 
Lord knows, and I know He has ways of letting 
her know! And so I know that Katie knows if 
it is best for her to know. 

" My time is quite occupied with things, 
though I have nothing to do, i.e., nothing com- 
pulsory. I have been putting some few touches 
that seem to me improving touches, as my book 
for the second edition. I shall make another 
brief addendum, if another edition is called for, 
on the ' Sermon, Its Ideas, Introduction, and 
Conclusion/ following the chapter on the ' Ser- 
mon, Its Ideal Topics/ I have discussed the 
' Sermon, Its Ideal Definition, Its Ideal " Con- 
stants/' " Immediates," " Cardinals," " Top- 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 169 



ics," ' but strangely enough I have omitted all 
discussion of its ideal introduction and conclu- 
sion, either of which may be determinative of 
pulpit effectiveness. How I came to leave these 
minor, and yet often vital parts of the sermon, to 
go without some elaboration and emphasis I do 
not quite know. But the wonder is, amid these 
trying days, when I was finishing the last part of 
the book, the wonder is that I was able to finish 
my task at all. For day and night I was in 
constant ministry to my darling in ways that 
were beyond the possibility of any nurse, how- 
ever trained and sympathetic. The press, as 
well as the dear brethren, have been very kind 
to me. Aff'y, as of old and evermore, 

" Herrick." 

" Your Christmas wish and greeting added to 
my stock of joy in yesterday's messages from all 
around the sky. It is the second Christmas I 
have passed since Katie went home. What if 
we could get greeting from there! I have been 
wondering what she would say ! But God's seal 
is on that door, and I would not break it, not 
even for what would be the sweetest thing in the 
world to me — a message from my darling. 

" Friends were very beautiful and bountiful 
in their remembrance of me. What a world of 
meaning is wrapped in that word sympathy! 

" And now, dear old boy, what if I should look 
in on you both some day ere long? I am going 



170 HERRICK JOHNSON 



to Urbana, 111., to see the Waldos sometime in 
January. Mrs. W. is very feeble. I hardly 
think she will live through the winter. She is 
a great sufferer from rheumatism — has been in 
bonds with it many, many weary months, and it 
is literally wearing her out. I am going to see 
her, the last of the four sisters, before she goes 
to meet her Lord and Katie. I know it would 
make Katie glad if she knew. 

" And then I am thinking of going farther 
East to see some of my old Philadelphia parish- 
ioners and friends. My study and sleeping room 
are waiting for me in the dearest of homes in 
Germantown, [probably he refers to the home of 
his very dear friend, Mr. Abraham Perkins] 
and the two hearts that ' beat as one ' are out on 
the lawn looking this way longingly and eager 
for my coming. How do I know this? They 
have sent me a photograph of it all, so I am 
going. Then I expect to run over to New York 
to see the dear brethren there for two or three 
days, and perhaps to spend a night with Revell 
at his home a little way out of town, where he 
has again and again invited me. Now I am 
thinking of going a little farther on this con- 
templated journey, with Pelham Manor as the 
terminus. What do you say to that? Not to 
spend the winter, but just for a day or two. Is 
Knox making his home now in Pelham Manor? 
I want much to see him and some of the other 
Union Seminary chaps. 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 171 



" I am thinking of starting in early January. 
Blessings on you and yours. 

" Aff'y., Herrick." 

Galen Hall, Atlantic City, May 10, 1909: 

" It is ' Galen Hall/ you see, and it is fine. All 
the appointments are excellent, the rooms for 
general use are many and exceedingly attractive. 
The table is all that can be desired. The sleep- 
ing rooms are well appointed and cosey. I 
have a large closet in connection with mine, and 
a fine bathroom. But the room is about the 
smallest one I ever slept in. I am going to try 
to get more room, i.e., a larger one, and I am 
promised the first one that is vacated. But the 
treatment — well, I had my first one this after- 
noon and it was simply delicious. I felt like a 
new man. I have had many treatments in many 
institutions. But this, to-day, was the finest by 
all odds that was ever given me. Among other 
things, the fellow treating me shot two streams 
of water at me, hitting me first in front and then 
in rear, and then the right side and then the 
left side. The effect was peculiarly fine, fairly 
delicious, and the reaction was simply splendid. 
Come and try it! 

" I suppose you will soon be off for the sum- 
mer. But I do wish you could be moved to try 
a week at Galen Hall. I am an enthusiast about 
Galen Hall, and each day seems to let on more 
steam, if you will pardon the wretched metaphor. 



178 HERRICK JOHNSON 



I am here through August; I shall preach for 
Gesner four Sabbaths. He used to be over the 
Second Church of Saratoga, and has some ad- 
mirable qualities as a preacher. He is very much 
liked here. His church was jammed full yester- 
day. Good-bye, old boy. Love to your wife. 

" Herrick." 

St. Louis, Mo., February 9, 1910: 

" I have just been reading over your precious 
letter of January 29, and I must write again to 
tell you how it touches my heart. I am here 
with my sister, Mollie, where I first found shel- 
ter after Katie's home-going. Of course, in 
one sense it is not 'home/ but Mollie is very 
sweet to me, and lived so often with us when 
Katie and I had a home together that her pres- 
ence brings to mind many a precious incident of 
the old days. I shall run over to Urbana soon, 
the seat of the Illinois University, in which Dr. 
Waldo's son is a professor. Mrs. Waldo is near 
death, I think. She has been a long but very 
patient sufferer, and the call home to her will be 
a blessed relief. 

" From there I'll go on to Chicago, where my 
old comrades in the toil and joy of fitting men 
for the ministry are still at their grand task. I 
hope to see lots of the old and dear friends, but 
most of all to meet and commune with Mrs. Mc- 
Cormick, who has been to me for thirty years a 
friend indeed. 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 173 



" How the ranks are thinning ! I mean the 
old ranks, the ranks we kept strength with when 
we were buoyant youths! God be praised for 
two blessed things, memories and hopes. 

" As of old, so now and evermore, 

" Herrick." 

April 29, 1910: 

" Are you expecting to be at Auburn next 
week? Do you know what a fine program they 
have for Commencement Week, and that I am 
one of the speakers and not in it? It has been a 
great disappointment to me to turn my back on 
that Alumni feast. I was to speak on ' The True 
Evangelism/ and it is in my heart that a ringing 
word needs to be said on the subject. But I 
could not get at it. My old brain kicked, I could 
not put it in the traces. And I could not soar 
with it. So I had to give up the appointment, 
though it cost me a big lot to do it. You see, 
old comrade, the swing of the old days is going, 
if it is not gone. I can't count on the powers. 
They get sluggish, they go wool-gathering. They 
sometimes sleep. But I have an outline on that 
topic, a message that I believe needs to be spoken 
and some day yet it may find a voice. 

" Let me know about your summer plans ; we 
may cross tracks. Love to your wife. Ever, 

" Herrick." 

We come now to the announcement of his ap- 
proaching marriage to Miss Margaret Duncan 



174 HERRICK JOHNSON 



of Louisville, Ky. The sensational press in re- 
ferring to it had the cruel headings, " Eighteen 
and Seventy-eight/' But the facts should be 
made plain that Miss Duncan was a mature, 
cultivated Christian woman, at an appropriate 
age in middle life for marriage. A charming 
woman, who was ready to make a beautiful 
home for this homeless, lonely man. And the 
thousands who knew and loved Dr. Johnson and 
mourned over his sorrowful, lonely condition, 
will never cease to be grateful to her who made 
during the last three years of his great life such 
a bright, happy, and loving home for him out of 
the devoted love she had for him. 

He wrote as follows, expressing his wonder at 
getting no word from me about his approaching 
marriage. As a matter of fact, I had really 
never received the letter and knew nothing of it, 
save the cruelly incorrect notice in the paper : 

" August 30, 1910, St. Louis, Mo. 
" I have just been reading over your delight- 
ful letter of May last, and to my surprise it 
bears no trace of your having been notified of 
my prospective marriage. It cannot be possible 
that I have not informed you of it, but this let- 
ter of yours of last May is the only letter in my 
possession. I cannot believe it possible that 
months have passed with no letters passing be- 
tween us. Surely I have told you of my new joy, 
and surely I have had, or ought to have had, a 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 175 



bunch of hearty congratulations from one of the 
oldest and dearest friends of the old days and 
years. It comes over me like a flood, such a 
possibility of silence. I am to be married to 
Miss Margaret Duncan of Louisville, Ky., on 
the 22nd of next month. 

" We shall take a little bridal tour to New- 
York and up the Hudson and through Lake 
George, returning to settle in Germantown 
(Philadelphia) early in October, where I have 
already secured a little love of a house for our 
future home. I have had some most precious 
letters of sympathetic and tender interest, which 
has been a great joy to me, and I am simply 
astonished that I do not find yours among them. 
Dr. Ray wrote me a wonderful letter, and so 
did Mrs. Peebles of Lansingburgh, Katie's most 
loved and intimate companion and friend through 
nearly her whole life. 

" I sent your name to Miss Duncan along 
with a whole lot of others to whom announce- 
ments, official and formal, were to be sent. I 
won't write any more until I get further word 
from you. I am in a perfect maze of uncer- 
tainty and doubt and bewilderment. 

" With the old loving heart, 

" Herrick." 

I wrote him as soon as possible, explaining 
that from June all through the summer and 
autumn months I had been, first in the General 



176 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Hospital at Rochester for a severe and very dan- 
gerous operation, and then in the Jackson Health 
Resort at Dansville, N. Y., for slow recovery, 
and still later at Block Island, R. I., unable to 
write any letters, though I had not heard from 
him, and then came this reply of September n, 
1910, St. Louis, only about ten days before his 
marriage : 

" No, no, no ! I have heard nothing of your 
protracted and severe illness. I little knew you 
were so far down in the Valley of the Shadow 
of Death. What a weary watching and wait- 
ing, and what a glad returning to life and love, 
and such service as God may fit you for. Noth- 
ing henceforth compulsory, no allotted and com- 
pelled tasks, no constraint through others to 
work, to which you can never go again with 
leaps and bounds and with feet like hind's feet. 
I find a real satisfaction in my limitations. 

" If I ever go to the operating table I trust I 
may have the same spirit of trust and serenity 
that marked you. I certainly have something 
of the quality of endurance that marked your 
case, for my ' vital organs ' have served me 
splendidly through all the years. And I think 
with a quiet life and no obligatory work, and a 
loving woman and a home nest, with Miss Dun- 
can's widowed sister to share it with us, and 
with a goodly number of my old and loved 
parishioners in the immediate vicinage, the even- 
ing slope of life may be somewhat useful and 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 177 



very beautiful. Some day yet we may get to- 
gether and talk over these and scores of other 
experiences, and thank God for the grace that 
helped us in sore traits and made us at last fit 
for the Kingdom and glory. Love to you both 
" From the same old 

" Herrick." 

After the death of his first wife he hungered 
inexpressibly for a home of his own, and it was 
fairly pathetic to see how he enjoyed it. It was 
a lovely suburban residence in Germantown, 
Philadelphia, an old-fashioned stone house, in an 
attractive lawn, and all modern improvements 
in the house. The charming study, opening 
onto the lawn, the delightful reception room, 
the exceedingly pleasant dining room, their own 
rooms upstairs, and guest chambers, Dr. John- 
son specially enjoyed showing to his guests, 
whom he always welcomed with characteristic 
cheer and bonhomie. From this address I re- 
ceived the two characteristic letters which 
here follow: 

" 6358 Greene Street, Germantown Station, 

"Philadelphia, Pa., April 21, 1911. 
" Where are you and how are you, and are 
you planning to be at the Assembly this year? 
You know it meets at Atlantic City, and we, 
Marjorie and I, are going to run down there 
for a few days. Wednesday, May 17th, prom- 
ises to be a great day. Dr. Jowett is to be there, 



178 HERRICK JOHNSON 



the big gun that has just come over the sea. I 
want to hear him, and so do you. Thursday the 
Assembly opens. Marjorie has never been at a 
General Assembly, and this will furnish a good 
opportunity to see what a splendid thing it is. 
We shall return to Philadelphia after a good 
taste of the big gathering, and huge drafts of sea 
air. I don't believe that I could stand the 
racket of an entire session. But how I used to 
enjoy the rush and roar and the high debates. I 
have hanging in my study a group of fourteen 
Moderators, taken one summer at Saratoga. I 
don't believe such a large number has before or 
since been present. It was the year we or- 
ganized the Board of College Aid, and Moore 
was Moderator, and the ex-Mods, were Darling, 
Van Dyke, Sr., Roberts, J. T. Smith, Patton, 
Crosby, Morris, Paxton, Craven, Backus, C. L. 
Thompson, E. D. Morris, and myself. 

" How the ranks have been mown down ! 
Charlie, we are among the older white-heads. 
It can't be long before the call to ' come up 
higher ' will take us to immortal youth. I feel 
pretty well preserved for a man close to the 
end of 79. But I could no more go through 
one of those old debates that made the Assembly 
a memory for life than I could fly. I think you 
owe me a letter; make believe you do, anyhow, 
and drop a few of your epistolary sweets into 
my capacious maw. Love to your wife. As ever, 

" Herrick." 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 179 



" Germantown, Philadelphia, April 2, 1912. 
" Just a word of affection and cheer. Retro- 
spect and prospect seem equally bringers of joy- 
to our hearts. How time is enlarging the num- 
bers of our loved ones over the river, and how 
the ranks on this side, with whom we have often 
walked into the ' Holy of Holies,' are thinning 
out. Katie's sister, Mrs. Waldo, is lying very 
ill and quite helpless in her home, in Urbana, 
111., and her husband, nearly ten years older than 
I, waits for the call home, and a little grand- 
daughter may soon be called. Dr. Waldo has a 
son, a Professor in the University of Illinois, 
at Urbana, and they are there together, the aged 
grandfather and grandmother, and their son 
and his wife, and the children's children. But it 
cannot be long before the circle will be broken. 
And what a gathering, a family gathering it will 
be when they get home! Yes, our McCormick 
Robinson is a smasher when he chooses to step 
into the arena, a royal, genial fellow, chock full 
of O. T. knowledge, he is sound to the core, a 
lovely, cheery, whole-hearted, genial fellow, and 
has no patience with the extremists in higher 
criticism. As to Beecher, I hold him in warm 
and reverent regard, a careful, well-balanced, and 
critical scholar, also sound to the core, and just 
the man to be writing on ' Reasonable Bible 
Criticism.' We hope, Marjorie and I, to go to 
Louisville next May. You know the Assembly 
meets there this year, and it was Marjorie's home 



180 HERRICK JOHNSON 



for years. Of course, I have no right whatever 
to be a commissioner from Chicago Presbytery, 
though I am still a member of that body. But if 
there are not many hankering to go this year, 
there is a possibility of my being made a dele- 
gate. Good-bye, dear heart. Love to you both. 

" In the old bonds, 

" Herrick." 

In visiting Mrs. Robinson's brother, who was 
a singularly happy paralytic, and his very dear 
family, we went to the church where Dr. John- 
son sent word he was to preach, and dined 
delightfully with Dr. and Mrs. Johnson, and 
her sister, who was living with them. He 
was so unaffectedly happy to have us as his 
guests and to have us at his table, that our 
hearts went out with warmest gratitude and love 
to Mrs. Johnson for securing such a home for 
our beloved friend, who without it would have 
been so unspeakably lonely. The strong, grand 
sermon he preached with that thrilling ring in 
his voice occasionally sounding as of yore, the 
still eagle-like glance of his eye, the ride with 
him and his lovely wife to their home, and that 
social dinner, with all its attractiveness, re- 
mains as an ever to be cherished precious mem- 
ory of our last sight of him. 

In writing afterwards to us, leaving out his 
introductory loving personalities, he adds: 
" Your letter was ' linked sweetness,' I wish I 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 181 



could add ' long drawn out/ but it was a joy 
to have you and your beloved in our home, and 
it was a real satisfaction to preach to yon two 
sinners! 

" I have a sermon on the ' Prisons of the 
Soul.' I am almost sorry I did not preach it, 
but it lacked the adaptation to the hour that the 
text chosen so happily furnished. That 1 Foras- 
much as ye know ' is a great stimulant to ' al- 
ways abounding/ 

" We are so glad you enjoyed our little 
modest home, and I am so glad you so easily 
discovered that my Marjorie is a ' multum in 
parvo/ She is out this evening to hear Speer on 
1 Missions/ but my having a cold made it seem 
the part of Providence to stay indoors. Good- 
bye, old fellow, and assure your beloved wife of 
our warm interest and ever watchful regard." 

To show into what a cheery, sunny, and af- 
fectionate family Dr. Johnson married when he 
took Miss Margaret Duncan of Louisville for 
his wife, I quote from a letter written by Mr. 
W. G. Duncan, president of the Luzerne Coal 
Company, Greenville, Ky., October I, 1912, on 
Dr. Johnson's eightieth birthday. The letter 
has this on the file in Dr. Johnson's handwriting : 
" Brother Bill's precious and cheery letter, con- 
cerning my eightieth birthday :" 
" My dear Brother Herrick : 

" We reached home in safety and found all 
our people well, and we have been having de- 



182 HERRICK JOHNSON 



lightful weather ever since we came back. We 
fully expected to have a letter in Atlantic City 
for you on the 22nd of September, that being 
the day that was commemorated by you and your 
dear little wife, the day that marked two anni- 
versaries, the first being the anniversary of the 
day that your two hearts were made one, and 
the second being the anniversary of your own 
birthday, and I certainly congratulate you on 
your health and the wonderful preservation of 
all your faculties on your eightieth anniversary. 
I know that you are grateful to the Master, and 
you ought to be, for such preservation as en- 
ables you to climb to the high peak from which 
you review your past, and look forward to the 
future, whatever it may have for you. And 
it is certainly our wish and prayers that He 
may yet have in store for you many days, even 
reaching into many years probably, and may 
they all be as bright and happy as any that have 
been reviewed by you in the past. Your humble 
servant thinks that he is getting to be quite an 
aged man, but when he thinks of the octogena- 
rian period that you have reached and, looking 
down as you see the sunset slope of life, with all 
the strength that you possess, he can hardly 
hope to attain to the height and the nearness to 
the Master that you have reached, because it 
has been a life's work with you, as it should 
be with all of us. But it seems that when I get 
home and get involved in commerce and business, 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 183 



that I too often forget the duties and pleasures 
that I owe to those who are very near and dear 
to me. It is so easy to postpone. This little 
word ' procrastination ' is one of the most dan- 
gerous words in the language and causes more 
troubles, annoyances, and heartaches probably 
than any other, and I fear that I permit it to 
let me say from day to day, ' to-morrow ' I 
must do certain things. At any rate, our hearts 
were full of love for both of you on that day, 
and we spoke of it in our home and in our pray- 
ers that night. 

" Again hoping that you may both be spared 
to each other and to those who love both of you, 
we are most heartily and sincerely 

" Your brother and sister, 

" Bill and Katie/' 

I am sure that it will be a great gratification 
to those of Dr. Johnson's friends who may read 
this record of his life to learn through a few 
quotations from many happy letters how satisfied 
and delighted he was in his home. He wrote 
at this time to his sister-in-law, whose home was 
with them in Germantown, but who had been 
absent quite a time in Louisville for treatment 
for her eyes. Mrs. Johnson, in writing to her 
sister, writes at the close of her letter : " Her- 
rick can have all the space he wants to-day for 
his postscript. He often tells me I do not give 
him enough." 



184 HERRICK JOHNSON 



" June 3, 1913. 

" Yes, dear Ella, I want all the space left by 
your considerate and ever-thoughtful sister, but 
I am not sure that I can so fill it that you will 
cry for more. Indeed, I think you have stopped 
giving me the slightest notice lately, not even 
saying ' dear folks ' at the beginning of your 
epistolary chat. Well, if I can't be anything 
but a ' folk ' I would rather be that than a 
nonentity, so peg away with almost the com- 
monest cognomens, if so be I only get noticed. 
You certainly have such an abundance of riches 
in the heart line that you can afford to give lav- 
ishly in affectionate expression, even to an old 
crank like me. So let the tender mix with the 
commonplace, and don't, don't let silence reign 
in the kingdom of sisterhood. Just let me have 
a share in your epistolary goodies, and the 
bigger the better. 

" I have been greatly interested in the Pres- 
byterian Assembly at Atlanta. How splendidly 
Dr. Stone of my old Fourth Church outran the 
fellows that had let their friends toot and toot 
before the Assembly met. A good deal of his 
success was, of course, owing to the fact that he 
was Pastor of my old church! The sure road 
to the Moderatorship was through that gateway. 
I got in that way ! Though Dr. Niccolls did his 
best in tooting Dr. Dickey. Good-bye, dear sis- 
ter. When are you coming home ? " 

In another letter, Mrs. Johnson wrote at its 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 185 



close : " I am sitting at Herrick's desk, and 
using his pen, but all to no avail; the brilliant 
thoughts of his brain do not seem to put them- 
selves on paper through the medium of his 
pen." Then Herrick takes up the laid-down 
pen: 

" P. S. : The brilliant thoughts are here, but 
they are not Marjorie's, i.e., if they prove stupid, 
Marjorie shall mother them, and if they prove 
brilliant, count them as Herrick's own, stamped 
and sealed, and ' good for this trip only/ But 
alas, me, the brilliants are paste. I picked one 
up just now to put in here, and lo, and behold! 
it disclosed its quality, and I pitched it into the 
waste-basket. By the bye, have you forgotten 
that there is a brother here who loves you, and 
who thinks he has at least a little bit of individ- 
uality, and rather prides himself on being ' not 
transferable and good for this trip only,' and 
so don't like to be bunched with a lot of others 
and called folks? You seem to be having a 
royal time, as if you were the Queen Jewel in 
a cluster of brilliants. Our little niece, Mary 
Elizabeth, is not here to-night to be challenged 
for a game of rook, so we tried backgammon, 
and Marjorie bloomed and bloomed with zeros. 
If she really wants to beat her boy, she should 
try something else. Good-bye ; we think of you, 
love you, and pray for you. As ever, 

" Herrick." 



186 HERRICK JOHNSON 



In another letter he writes to this beloved 
sister-in-law : 

" Dear Sun-beaming Sister, what's the matter 
in your new quarters? Are they so large and 
exacting in their claims on your time and 
strength that you lose sight of the big kid and 
his wife located here, in Germantown? Your 
sister is threatening all sorts of reprisals, and 
your brother is saying, ' Me too,' with a mighty 
emphasis. If I knew your weak point, you 
would get a walloping never to be forgotten. 
You haven't seen me yet with a lashing tongue! 
If you would escape all that, just let silence be 
broken by a loving and tender epistle to Mar- 
jorie, and a cartload of apologies to yours truly. 
Marjorie has caught a cold in some way. But 
the Doctor of Medicine is attending to her case, 
and the doctor of theology is doing his best to 
keep her in good cheer, and the weather is so 
favorable that we are hoping for rapid improve- 
ment. A cheery, hearty letter from you would 
be a fine tonic. We are reading The Master 
of the Oaks, by Caroline Stanley, and like it 
exceedingly. She puts things very happily, and 
every page is alive with her wit and wisdom. 
If we were through with it, I would send it to 
you. Get it to while away the weary hours 
you must be enduring so far away from your 
Germantown home. The weather is delicious, 
and Germantown is at its best. It seems to me 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 187 



that the place never looked lovelier, and our little 
retreat is quite beautiful by a flower bed, just in 
front of our back porch. All we need now to 
make conditions perfect is — you may guess 
what. Marjorie will add a word, so that you 
will see that she is gentle and loving and forgiv- 
ing, notwithstanding, etc., etc. Good-bye. Come 
home soon. 

" Herrick." 

In a postscript to another letter to this sister, 
he writes: 

" Somehow the house don't seem like the same 
home without you, and you are not telling us 
much about yourself. Do write a full, clear, 
elaborate, roseate account of yourself, and es- 
pecially go into particulars about your eyes. We 
pray for you every day, ask the dear Lord to be 
round about you as a shield, and in you as an 
abiding and an abysmal joy. Mary Elizabeth 
seems to be at the very height of joy just now, 
because she and her wise and sober Aunt Dick 
beat me at a game of logomachy. If it clears 
up for an outing, we will take a drive through 
the park. Do let us hear often. With waves 
on waves of love from us all." 

This was one of the bright and cheerful post- 
scripts he wrote from his home to a dearly loved 
sister-in-law. They all breathe a serenity born 
of his great hope, and of the abiding presence 



188 HERRICK JOHNSON 



of the Son of God in his soul. He knew he 
was not far from his transfer from earth to 
Heaven. It came as he wished it — suddenly, 
while he was sleeping. The telegram announc- 
ing that he had gone from earth to Heaven had 
its exceedingly painful and its very glorious 
sides. His devoted family and his large num- 
ber of devoted friends has lost him. The 
world will never seem the same with Herrick 
Johnson gone. But he has gone to be forever 
with the Lord. A very abundant entrance was 
ministered unto him. The Son of God must 
have delighted in him. All the way through life 
he had followed Him, broadening, deepening, 
rising in his spiritual life unto the end. Indeed, 
there was no end ; he has entered into life. The 
adorable Master, the Son of God, we are sure 
rejoices to have such a soul near Him, with Him 
in the glory. 

He preached on Wednesday night, November 
12, just a week before he went home, at 
the First Church, Germantown, where he and 
Mrs. Johnson worshipped, from the text, 
" Their Works Do Follow Them" (Rev. 14:13). 
The sermon appears on a later page. His 
voice was in fine condition, that wonderful 
voice of his, and to his hearers, who listened 
with rapt attention, he seemed to put as much 
vigor and enthusiasm into his preaching as a 
man of forty years. After service he walked 
home, about eight blocks, and to one who asked 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 189 



him if he felt tired, he replied: "I feel like 
a morning star. It doesn't hurt me to preach. 
There isn't anything in the world like preach- 
ing the Gospel. I would like to be at it 
again ! " 

The next day he went with his wife to the city. 
They lunched there together, and going back 
home before her he met her, as was his custom, 
at the station. Saturday evening they went to 
an entertainment furnished by John Kendrick 
Bangs, where Dr. Johnson's contagious apprecia- 
tion of the lecturer's humor kept the people near 
by greatly amused. It rained on Sunday, his last 
Sunday, and he did not go out. But in every 
way he showed his quiet enjoyment of the day. 
In the evening he read a sermon to his wife, 
and they sang together all the dear old hymns 
which he loved. He went on Monday to the 
ministers' meeting, lunched in town, but seemed 
very tired. The doctor did not think any occa- 
sion for alarm. He seemed better on Tuesday. 
In the afternoon he took a walk with Mrs. 
Johnson, but stayed at home on Wednesday, his 
last day. He often spoke of how glorious it 
would be for them all to be with the Lord. In 
the evening he played backgammon with Mrs. 
Johnson, and slept the early part of the night. 
He was very restless the latter part of the night, 
but fell asleep again, and quietly, without any 
struggle, passed away. He had requested that 
at the last there should be a most simple service. 



190 HERRICK JOHNSON 



He had frequently said : " Wouldn't it be 
blessed to go to sleep at night and wake up in 
Heaven ? " God took him in the way he 
wanted to go. He had promised to preach at 
the Baptist Home, near them, Thursday night, 
and when one of the men from that home came 
on Wednesday to see him about it, he told him 
he would be there. In the night he talked about 
it, and Mrs. Johnson replied : " We will see 
how you feel in the morning." In the morning 
he was with his Heavenly Father. Services 
were held at the house on Saturday evening at 
five o'clock, because Dr. Johnson's sister, Mrs. 
Oscar Gray of St. Louis, and his half-brother, 
Mr. Charles Johnson of Webster Groves, Mo., 
did not get to Germantown until Saturday morn- 
ing. The service at home was most satisfac- 
torily conducted by Dr. Jennings, the Pastor 
of the First Presbyterian Church of German- 
town, assisted by the Rev. Dr. Dripps, an old and 
dear friend of Dr. Johnson's, and who has him- 
self since passed away. 

On Saturday the beloved remains of the de- 
parted were borne to Auburn, N. Y., and de- 
posited in the Hardenburg family burial lot 
beside those of the first Mrs. Johnson. 

Accompanying the body to Auburn were Mrs. 
Johnson and her sister, Mrs. Walter W. Boone, 
of Germantown, and her brother, W. G. Dun- 
can, of Greenville, Ky. ; her friend, Mrs. John 
S. Lyons, of Louisville, Ky., also Dr. Herrick 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 191 



Johnson's sister, Mrs. N. Oscar Gray, of St. 
Louis, Mo., and his brother, C. W. Johnson, of 
Webster Groves, Mo. These friends were all 
entertained by President Stewart at his home, 
on the Seminary campus. 

Dr. Andrew Z. Zenos, who represented Mc- 
Cormick Seminary and had a part in the serv- 
ices, was a friend and co-worker of Dr. John- 
son's for many years at McCormick Seminary. 
Dr. Zenos is Professor of Church History in 
that institution. He was entertained here by 
Rev. Charles G. Richards, D.D., Pastor of the 
First Presbyterian Church, who was a student 
under both Dr. Zenos and Dr. Johnson at " Mc- 
Cormick." 

The services at Bradley Chapel were attended 
by a small body of friends in addition to those 
who had brought the body here for burial. A 
number of beautiful floral tributes were sent to 
the chapel, among which was a beautiful cross 
of white roses, chrysanthemums, and lilies from 
the Faculty of McCormick Seminary. 

President Stewart read several selections of 
Scripture, taking them from the book of forms 
compiled by Dr. Johnson. Dr. Zenos spoke 
briefly of the work of the deceased, but said that 
he would make no attempt to give an apprecia- 
tion of his life and work. He stated that a 
memorial service when such expression would 
be given was to be held in the Fourth Presby- 
terian Church in Chicago at the first of the year. 



192 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Following his remarks, Dr. Zenos read a minute 
passed by the McCormick Faculty after they 
had received the news of the death of Dr. John- 
son. The minute follows: 

" The news which has just reached us of the 
death of our beloved colleague, the Rev. Pro- 
fessor Herrick Johnson, D.D., LL.D., brings to 
our minds afresh the strong personality whose 
activities and influence have shaped so greatly 
the history of our institution. 

" Dr. Johnson gave to this Seminary the best 
energies of his being. He came to his class- 
room in 1 88 1 out of the midst of busy pastoral 
work. The churches which had known his 
power as preacher and pastor are among the 
leading forces of our denominations. Churches 
in which history had already been made ac- 
cepted his leadership and rejoiced in his power. 

" From Auburn, where he taught successive 
generations of young men, he came to this city 
as pastor of a church in whose membership 
were men of extraordinary force of character, 
trained in leadership, and originators of great en- 
terprises. While this would have been to most 
men a satisfying arena for labor and struggle, 
to Dr. Johnson the opportunity that was offered 
in our Seminary appealed with an irresistible at- 
traction. It is not to the classroom alone that 
his activities were confined. He was one of the 
builders here when the outlook was just begin- 
ning to brighten, and when enthusiasm and gen- 



APTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 193 



erous optimism were the prerequisites of the 
Seminary's success. Shoulder to shoulder with 
men of power, experience, and strong will, he 
labored year after year. 

" Generations of students bear grateful testi- 
mony to his great personality. Were any dis- 
couraged, they received from him fresh inspira- 
tion and went their way rejoicing. Were any 
needy, their anxieties were relieved and their 
studies continued by reason of his open-handed 
generosity. Our heritage to-day was won by 
such work as he and the others unceasingly and 
unstintingly gave. It is not always given to 
our great men to see the fruit of their labors, 
and be satisfied therewith, to give of their 
strength, and yet behold the crown not only of 
the institution, but of their own abundant toil. 

"Dr. Johnson felt that he had rounded out 
his task, and that he could retire from a work 
nobly done, and we believe that in these last 
years, when he was resting and awaiting the 
summons to appear in the presence of his Mas- 
ter, that he felt a joy and satisfaction in what 
he had done for the young men, the sons of the 
Church. 

" We sorrow that he is for a season parted 
from us, we do even more greatly rejoice that 
he can so triumphantly enter into rest. 

" In this hour of sorrow, our sincere and heart- 
iest sympathy goes forth to the wife, who is now 
deprived of his love, care, and companionship." 



194 HERRICK JOHNSON 



The following was adopted that evening by 
the members of the Faculty of Auburn Theo- 
logical Seminary: 

" The Faculty of Auburn Theological Semi- 
nary would record their sense of loss to the 
Seminary and to the Church in the death of the 
Rev. Professor Herrick Johnson, D.D., LL.D., 
of McCormick Theological Seminary. 

" Dr. Johnson came to Auburn in the vigor 
of his manhood, and with the fame of preacher 
and leader. His teaching of Homiletics and 
Pastoral Theology had the authority of experi- 
ence, and attracted and quickened by its clear- 
ness and positiveness. He gave to it the charm 
of enthusiasm and sympathy. 

" Drawn to Chicago by what seemed to him 
the unparalleled opportunity of the Northwest, 
Dr. Johnson never forgot his Alma Mater and 
the place of his first teaching, but rejoiced in 
the welfare of Auburn, and followed his former 
students with undiminished interest. 

" Four of the present Faculty think of him 
with reverence and love as the inspirer of their 
young manhood, and all the Faculty unite in the 
expression of gratitude for the gift to the 
Church of a preacher and teacher so devoted to 
his high calling, so prophetic in his vision of 
opportunity, so effective in calling and training 
young men for the work of the Christian min- 
istry." 

On December 7, 19 13, in the First Church, 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 195 



Philadelphia, Sunday at 4 p.m., a remarkable 
service in memory of Dr. Johnson was held by 
his former students of McCormick Theological 
Seminary. 

Dr. Edw. Yates Hill, the pastor of the First 
Presbyterian Church, where the Rev. Albert 
Barnes and Dr. Johnson had been pastor, pre- 
sided. The Rev. Robert E. L. Jarvis, Ph.D., 
offered prayer ; Dr. David S. Kennedy, editor 
of the Presbyterian, spoke on " Dr. Johnson as a 
Church Leader." The Rev. John W. Francis, 
pastor of the Oxford Presbyterian Church, 
spoke on " Dr. Johnson as the Author." Dr. 
Joseph W. Cochran, Secretary of the Board of 
Education, spoke on " Dr. Johnson as the 
Preacher " ; Dr. John R. Sutherland, Associate 
Secretary of the Board of Ministerial Relief and 
Sustentation, spoke on " Dr. Johnson as Pastor 
and Friend." The Rev. James H. Dunham, 
of the University of Pennsylvania, spoke on 
" Dr. Johnson, the Educator." I wish that the 
space assigned me by the publishers would allow 
me to quote these addresses in full. I trust, 
however, that they will appear in a memorial 
volume devoted to this great service, together 
with the many tender and beautiful letters sent to 
Dr. Hill. All of these are well worth reproduc- 
tion here, but the limitations set by the publish- 
ers make it essential to select only a few. Here 
is one from the Rev. Dr. Stryker, the President 
of Hamilton College, Dr. Johnson's Alma Mater: 



196 HERRICK JOHNSON 



" November 28, 1913. 
" The Rev. Dr. Edward Yates Hill. 

" My Dear Sir : Under the request of Dr. 
Cochran, I write briefly this inadequate tribute 
to Dr. Herrick Johnson as I knew him. I had 
the honor to follow him in the pastorate of the 
Fourth Church of Chicago. In all the work of 
the Chicago Presbytery, 1885-1892, I was 
closely associated with him. He was my teacher 
at Auburn, 1875- 1876. He was an honored 
graduate of Hamilton, 1857 — even then dis- 
tinguished for his public forensic gifts. He was 
selected in 1903 to make the memorial address 
here in tribute to our long-time beloved Pro- 
fessor Edward North. He did it in most com- 
plete and welcome sort. 

" I deeply admired the masculine strength 
and courage of conviction which marked all 
of Dr. Johnson's career. He had rare spiritual 
energy and tenacity. I enjoyed serving under 
him upon the College Board, which was his child 
and which nobly perpetuates his ardor for Chris- 
tian higher education. 

" He was a good and kindly friend to me, and 
I cherish the memory of his long and wise 
service. 

" 1 send my greetings to those who also loved 
him. 

" And I am yours most sincerely, 

" M. Woolsey Stryker." 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 197 



From the President of the McCormick Theo- 
logical Seminary: 

" McCormick Theological Seminary, President's 
House, 2348 North Halsted Street, Chicago, 
December 3, 1913. 

" My dear Mr. Hill : 

" It is with the greatest gratification I learn 
of the intention of the Alumni of McCormick 
Theological Seminary to hold a memorial serv- 
ice for the Rev. Dr. Herrick Johnson in the 
First Church of Philadelphia. Surely such a 
service will give opportunity to his former stu- 
dents to voice their admiration for a beloved 
teacher, while the very walls of the Church it- 
self will sound out the praise of its former 
Pastor. 

" My acquaintance with Dr. Johnson covers 
almost forty years. During that period our fel- 
lowship became increasingly intimate, and our 
friendship increasingly affectionate. 

" I knew him first as a great preacher, and I 
recall with delight my admiration of his stalwart 
form, his vigorous speech, and his impressive 
personality. Then I learned to know him as a 
tender-hearted pastor, who saw deep into an- 
other's sensitiveness, and who carried as his! 
own another's grief. Still later I knew him as 
the inspiring teacher, sure of his own convictions 
and summoning his pupils to accept and live his 
views. Then there came acquaintance with him 



198 HERRICK JOHNSON 



as a courageous initiator, and I watched with 
delight his movements to originate the College 
Board and to secure revision of confessional 
standards. 

" The phase, however, of his character that I 
most love to dwell upon, and that seems to me 
his commanding glory, was the magnaminity of 
his soul. He had the wonderful faculty, be- 
stowed upon the very few, of preserving sweet- 
ness of spirit, even when controversy was se- 
vere and tended toward bitterness. I have seen 
him face his opponent in debate with absolutely 
unyielding resistance, and then when the debate 
concluded, grasp the hand of his opponent with 
warmth and assure him of his good-will. I 
never knew him to cherish a grudge. His was 
a splendidly loving heart, ready when the sum- 
mons came to enter into that perfect life that is 
perfect love. 

" With my best wishes to all who participate 
in this worthy service, I am cordially, 

" James G. K. McClure." 

Here is a single sentence from the letter of 
the beloved and honored Dr. Charles T. L. 
Thompson, for many years Secretary of the 
Board of Home Missions: 

" Our Church has produced few men like 
Herrick Johnson — great in service, in friend- 
ship, and in consecration." 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 199 

From Dr. Johnson's very dear friend and 
Seminary associate, Prof. Andrew C. Zenos, this 
came: 

" McCormick Theological Seminary, 2330 North 
Halsted Street, Chicago, December 3, 1913. 

Rev. Edward Yates Hill, D.D., Philadel- 
phia, Pa. 

" My Dear Dr. Hill : I am deeply grateful 
for the opportunity of sharing in the service to 
be held in memory of Dr. Johnson at Philadel- 
phia. The fact that such a service is planned 
for in a church with which he had ceased to be 
connected for nearly forty years is evidence of 
the strength of Dr. Johnson's hold on the hearts 
of his friends. He was indeed a many-sided 
and great man, but his greatness was nowhere 
more clearly revealed than in his power to 
arouse affection and loyalty in the hearts of 
his friends. He did not do this with a conscious 
effort, though he enjoyed and appreciated as 
much as any one else the possession of loyal 
friends. It was, however, more the unconscious 
magnetism of his personality than his deliberate 
action that drew men to him and placed him in 
the position of leadership when leaders were 
called for. 

" My own relations with him came to be, in 
the course of thirty years, of the most intimate 
kind. It was a joy to see him enter our home 
and make himself a child with the children, to 



200 HERRICK JOHNSON 



hear his hearty laugh as he frolicked and jested 
with them, and to feel the warmth of his genial 
presence in the household circle. It was a 
privilege likewise to be allowed access to the 
sacredness of his own home life, to witness the 
open-handed and lavish way in which he ex- 
pressed his affection for those he loved, and to 
admire the tender care and courtly chivalry with 
which he always treated her who so beautifully 
shared in all his public labors and rewards to 
the end of his active connection with McCor- 
mick Seminary. 

" He was not slow in making his friends un- 
derstand that with him they must be free to ex- 
press differences of opinion without risk of 
losing his esteem. Loyalty to him did not mean 
standing with him, right or wrong, on all ques- 
tions in dispute before the public. In private 
conversation, as well as in public debate, he 
expressed himself emphatically, fearlessly, and 
vigorously. He gave hard blows in behalf of 
what he considered the truth; but he was also 
willing to listen patiently, and seemed to enjoy 
emphatic dissent from his views as long as it 
was expressed without personal rancor. When 
the controversy was over, he was ready to re- 
turn to the unruffled enjoyment of as intimate 
fellowship as ever. 

" One was not tempted to think of doing any 
service for Dr. Johnson. His general strength 
left the impression that he was never in need of 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 201 



help of any sort. Nevertheless he was sensi- 
tive to the slightest sign of friendliness, and his 
generous heart always magnified whatever was 
done for him in the way of expressing affection 
and regard. 

" His public services and character will, no 
doubt, receive in other ways the tribute which 
they deserve. I esteem it a privilege to be able 
to add to your service these few words of a 
private and personal appreciation of him. 

" Sincerely, 
" Andrew C. Zenos." 

From his lifelong friend, Dr. Niccolls : 

"8 Hortense PL, St. Louis, Mo., December 
4, I9I3- 

" Rev. Edward Yates Hill, D.D., 1014 Clin- 
ton Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 
"My dear Dr. Hill: 

" Your letter, notifying me of the services to 
be held in memory of Dr. Herrick Johnson, is at 
hand. I greatly regret that circumstances pre- 
vent me from being present on that occasion, for 
I should like to be among the number of those 
who will come to render their tribute of honor 
to his character, and of gratitude for his services. 

" It was my privilege to know him and to enjoy 
his friendship for many years. I gladly bear 
testimony to his rare qualities of mind and heart. 
His was a unique and most attractive person- 
ality. No one could enter an assembly of which 



202 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Dr. Johnson formed a part and fail to recognize 
his presence. It was dominating. His com- 
manding form, the expression of his counte- 
nance, his free, vigorous movements, and his 
manner of speech proclaimed him a born leader 
of men. There was nothing negative about him. 
Positive in speech and convictions, there was a 
certain royalty which compelled attention. He 
was a brave and fearless fighter for truth and 
righteousness, never trimming his utterances to 
win applause, or gain the favor of men. 

" The history of his ministry furnishes many 
striking illustrations of his unfaltering and 
heroic fidelity to his convictions. He was not 
afraid to challenge the powers of darkness; yet 
he was no controversionalist, eager to cross 
swords with those whose convictions and inter- 
pretations of truth differed from his. He was 
broad-minded, sympathetic, and tolerant in his 
judgment of others. His genial and lovable na- 
ture, and a soul quickened by divine grace, made 
him incapable of cherishing resentment or bit- 
terness against those who differed from him or 
opposed him. Who, that knew him, does not 
remember the smile that illuminated his face 
and the joyous words of welcome that burst from 
his lips when he greeted a friend? He could 
laugh heartily, sincerely, and jovially, which is. a 
high qualification for a theologian and a teacher. 
He could also shed tears, and weep with those 
that wept. He was genuinely and unaffectedly 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 203 



human, keenly alive to all of the interests of life. 
For this reason he had a magnetic attraction 
for his fellow-men and drew them to himself in 
interest and personal affection. 

" He was not ambitious to secure leadership, 
yet he had it as by divine right. His preemi- 
nence in the Church was not accidental or at- 
tained by selfish methods. He was a great 
preacher, not only through his knowledge of the 
Scriptures and his ability to present their teach- 
ings in systematic form, but also through his 
power to appeal to the consciences and hearts of 
his hearers. Those who sat under his instruc- 
tion in the Theological Seminary will remember 
what importance he attached to the appeal with 
which a sermon should close. 

" He was a writer of good books, among which, 
the one which will be of most enduring value, is 
the Ideal Ministry, the rich fruitage of his long 
experience and ripened wisdom. But the most 
important feature of his public ministry was that 
given for twenty-five years to McCormick Theo- 
logical Seminary. By what he there wrote upon 
the minds and hearts of the young men who 
came under his instruction he has multiplied and 
extended his influence throughout our country 
and the world. They are ' living epistles/ each 
one bearing more or less the marks of his hand- 
writing upon them. His memory is an inspira- 
tion to them, his example full of instruction. 

" Best of all, Dr. Johnson was a sincere, 



204} HERRICK JOHNSON 



humble-minded, and joyful Christian. His as- 
sured faith made him ' glad in the Lord.' This 
was the secret of his perpetual youthfulness. He 
never grew old, save in bodily powers. He did 
not, as is sometimes the case, lose his interest in 
the affairs of the Church as his years multiplied. 
After his retirement from his chair in the Theo- 
logical Seminary, he became an attendant for a 
time upon the services of the church of which I 
am the pastor. Not only was he present on the 
Lord's Day, but he was a regular attendant 
upon the weekly prayer meeting, in which he 
took part both by prayer and exhortation. He 
preached powerfully among us by his example. 
It would require a volume, rather than this brief 
letter, to give an adequate estimate of his char- 
acter and ministry. We who knew him and were 
privileged to come immediately under the power 
of his personality, thank God in his behalf, and 
hold him in loving memory. But his influence 
going abroad to thousands who never knew him 
personally is one of the priceless legacies of the 
whole Church. Thank God for such a man. 

" May a double portion of his spirit rest upon 
those who have witnessed his departure, and to 
whom his memory is so dear. 

" Fraternally yours, 

" Sam'l J. NlCCOLLS." 

The following graceful tribute to Dr. Johnson 
is here reproduced from the columns of The 
Continent: 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 205 



A VALIANT CAPTAIN OF THE LORD'S 
HOST. 

The Continent is gratified to-day with the 
reflection that it has not waited until his death 
to pay tribute to the brilliant talents which Dr. 
Herrick Johnson so powerfully and whole- 
heartedly devoted to the religious progress of 
his generation. What is said here, therefore, 
accompanying the record of his decease at his 
home in Philadelphia on Thursday, November 
20, can only be reaffirmation and reemphasis of 
previous estimates of his altogether exceptional 
service in the Presbyterian Church. It was a 
service compounded of half a dozen varied ele- 
ments, whereof any one would have been enough 
to secure his name permanent remembrance in 
the Christian annals of America. 

Dr. Herrick Johnson was born in Kaugh- 
newagh, New York, September 22, 1832. Grad- 
uating from Hamilton College and Auburn 
Seminary he was ordained to the ministry in 
i860. Almost immediately he leaped into the 
reputation of a preacher of the first rank for 
eloquence, charm, and force. Successively he 
was popular in the pulpits of his first charge in 
Troy, New York; the Third Church of Pitts- 
burgh, and First Church of Philadelphia. Then 
followed a period of six years as professor of 
homiletics in his home seminary at Auburn. 
Thence in 1880 he was drawn to Chicago to 



£06 HERRICK JOHNSON 



serve as pastor of the Fourth Church with inci- 
dental teaching duties in McCormick Seminary. 
Shortly the teaching took precedence of the pas- 
toral work, and he launched out fully on his 
greatest lifework in connection with that insti- 
tution. At the beginning of this period he was 
elected moderator of the General Assembly in 
Springfield, 111., May, 1882. 

In 1905 the advance of age induced Dr. John- 
son to retire from active duties. In 1907 he lost 
his wife, whom as Miss Catherine Hardenburg 
he married in Auburn in i860. In 1910 he 
wedded Miss Duncan of Louisville. 

There was something leonine in Dr. Johnson, 
despite his slender and nervous figure, and that 
daring and imperious quality had endued him 
with the magic of leadership from his youth up. 
Of that leaderly power he gave a faithful stew- 
ard's good account by helping to cement during 
his young manhood the then recent conjunction 
of Old and New School Presbyterians, by forc- 
ing on the General Assembly the necessity for 
organizing a College Board to advance Christian 
education, by contributing to the development 
of McCormick Theological Seminary, by calming 
the hysteria of fear which threatened to obsess 
the Church at the period of the Briggs trials, and 
perhaps above all else, by his persistent and 
skilful labors to create among Presbyterians the 
public sentiment that made possible the liberating 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 207 



revision of the Westminster Confession in 1903. 
It is full measure for a long life which is thus 
recounted in barest outline, and even this enumer- 
ation does not include the incalculable influence 
of his twenty-five years of teaching in McCor- 
mick Seminary. As professor of homiletics there 
he imparted to hundreds of the ablest men in the 
contemporary Presbyterian ministry his own 
thrilling joy, and something at least of his own 
entrancing power, in the preaching of the gospel 
of Jesus Christ. 

To those, however, who were in any degree 
privileged to enjoy Dr. Johnson's personal friend- 
ship, the memory of his monumental public 
service will be subordinated to the tenderer mem- 
ory of the " sweetness and light " of his private 
life. With all his strength and determination, 
it was yet a rarely gentle soul that dwelt in his 
bosom. In public and in private his wholesome- 
ness was equal, and a stainless shield is the 
bright ornament of the earthly armor he has just 
laid off. Being granted in God's providence an 
ample span of duty and experience here, he is 
not to be mourned as he passes to his heavenly 
recompense; not sorrow but thanksgiving for 
him is the perfume of the flowers on his bier. 

The concluding pages of this brief biography 
I shall devote to the words of him of whom I 
have written. Here is his last message delivered 
a week before he went home to God : 



208 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Rev. 14:13 (last clause). "For their works 
follow with them." 

(Read in connection Matthew 7:13-20.) 

We sing of " the land that is fairer than day." 
Where is it ? We speak of the land that is " very- 
far off." Is it so far ? . Does Death end all ? And 
if not, what is beyond? Hints, guesses, sugges- 
tions, hopes, probabilities, analogies — these all 
favor a future, but they give us no certainty, 
they do not anchor us in a perfect confidence. 
The seers of the race have sought to pierce the 
mystery. The logicians of the race have sought 
to solve the mystery. The poets of the race have 
given wings to their imagination, and have come 
back laden with the supposed perfumes and 
sports of that unknown world, but we have 
known them to be only dreams. Wherever man 
has been found without a revelation, under what- 
ever climes and in whatever age, he has stood 
with some desire or dread of a hereafter, peering, 
now with dull and heavy sense, now with keen 
vision stirred by " awful thrills of curiosity," into 
that mystery of the future, which yet has eluded 
all sight and baffled all knowledge. 

Clear, beautiful, and certain in the repose of 
sublimest confidence, comes the word of Chris- 
tianity, assuring us of immortality. Christ's) 
vacant sepulchre is the open door telling us 
unmistakably of room beyond. Looking through 
that rent tomb, we grow sure Death does not 
end all. Guesses, probabilities, peradventures are 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 209 



done with, it is knowledge now. We do know 
that if this earthly house of our tabernacle 
perish, we do not die. 

But whither after death, and what? The fact 
of immortality assured, what about the kind ? Is 
it so wide apart from now ? Is the future life so 
unlike the present life as to make true the in- 
finite contrasts we so commonly think of, when 
we think of this matter at all ? Yes and no. The 
answer will depend upon our point of view. We 
shall be without a body, and that will be one 
marvellous difference between then and now. 
For the spirit to be free from every clamp and 
hindrance of the flesh will be something strange 
and wonderful, and though at the resurrection 
each will get back his own body, it will not be 
the body of our humiliation but changed by 
Christ into the body of His glory, so that the 
contrast will be marvellous still. 

Those that die in the Lord will be without 
sin in the future life, and that will be another 
immense stretch away from now. 

The life of the future will also be one of 
perfect adaptations, and who can conceive what 
a difference that will make? Things will match 
all round. Spirits will harmonize. There will be 
no maladjustment. 

But apart from these things and things inci- 
dent to them and growing out of them will the 
future be so marvellously unlike the present? 
If some writers have materialized heaven over- 



210 HERRICK JOHNSON 



much, are we quite sure that in our common 
thought we have not etherealized heaven over- 
much? Will it be so very different every way? 
What is there in the mere article of death to 
twist us out of our old drifts and tendencies and 
habitudes, to break up our individualities and 
transform us in traits and capacities? Washed 
clean of sin, we shall be. But won't we go 
right on otherwise, with our life, with our growth, 
with our innocent preferences and companion- 
ships and occupations ? The girl to whom music 
here is both praise and prayer as her soul goes 
up in sweet melody to God, may not have a piano 
in heaven, the deacon's son may not hoe potatoes 
there, but will there not be something in heaven 
answering to each sinless trait and taste and 
meeting it? Are we to be wrenched suddenly 
away from everything of earth not only, but 
from everything that characterized us while here ! 
I do not believe it ! Moses and Elias came out of 
heaven and on the Mount talked with Jesus, 
talked as they would if they had never been 
away, talked of the topic that lay nearest their 
hearts. We shall do that, I do not doubt. Many 
a soul will wait long beyond the gates for the 
coming of some friend. Many a friend will 
go there to find some blessed surprises. Multi- 
tudes will have it to say that " He the Master 
was the first one to meet me. Never by one 
word or look from that hour to this day has He 
let me feel ashamed in heaven." And to be 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 211 



thrilled with the joy of having plucked even one 
such brand from the burning will be to under- 
stand how it is that " their works do follow 
them/' 

" Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord 
from henceforth, Yea, saith the Spirit, that they 
may rest from their labors, for their works fol- 
low with them." You see how close this life is 
to the next. You see how works here get tied 
to blessedness there. They are not " labors " any 
more, to be wearily done, for this is the meaning 
of the word rendered " labors," wearisome effort, 
toil with stress and pain, that tires and hurts. 
Those that die in the Lord " rest " from these. 
They are not through with service. The record 
is " They serve each day and night." The " rest " 
is therefore not the rest of inactivity, of idleness, 
but the rest of toil without fatigue, of activity 
with immortal freshness with the spring and dew 
of eternal youth and mourning. And the reason 
for the rest is " that their works do follow them." 
The works pass on with them as their escort 
into eternity. 

The theme that thus invites our meditation is 
the true relation of Christian works in this life 
to Christian rest in the life to come. May heaven 
be more real to us, and more near and dear to 
us for our fellowship with this truth of God 
to-day. 

I. The Christian's works follow him through 
the gates to testify to his right to the rest. 



212 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Does this seem a bold word ? Does it savor of 
presumption to talk of rights for a poor sinner 
in heaven? If I deserve nothing but condem- 
nation, and God out of His infinite and sovereign 
grace alone lets me through the gates, is it for me 
to speak of the meanest privilege of heaven as 
mine by right ? In Christ Jesus, yes, not only the 
meanest privilege, but every privilege. The 
whole sweep of heaven, every room in it, every 
glory of it, the ineffable, fathomless bliss and 
blessedness of it, is the rightful claim of the 
Christian. For his own sake, nothing; for 
Christ's sake everything. By personal merit, not 
the rudest hovel that might be built in that city of 
splendor and gold. By the merit of Jesus, the 
very palace and presence chamber of the King. 
The Christian's right to the heavenly rest has 
been purchased; not with corruptible things as 
silver and gold, not with such common and 
tainted things as penances and prayers, but with 
the precious blood of Christ, with the obedience 
unto death of the blessed son of God. Presenting 
that purchase price before the Father, Jesus 
makes His plea not as a beggar begging a boon, 
but as a royal advocate speaking by authority, 
" Father, I will that those whom thou hast given 
me be with me where I am." And the ransomed 
will come up to the gates with rights and titles. 
Having believed and loved, they will rest from 
their labors. And their right to the rest will be 
vindicated, for " their works do follow them." 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 213 



This attending escort of witnessing works will 
prove two things, the genuineness of each Chris- 
tian's faith and the sincerity of his love. 

The works will follow to testify to the genuine- 
ness of faith. " For faith, if it have not works, 
is dead," is a lifeless and spurious thing. If " a 
brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily 
food, and one of you say unto them, ' Go in peace, 
be ye warmed and filled, and yet ye give them 
not the things needful to the body, what doth it 
profit?'" So if ye say "Lord, Lord," and do 
not the things bidden of the Lord, what doth it 
profit? But the dead that die in the Lord, 
" Their works do follow them," and the weakest 
faith will go unchallenged in the face of that 
evidence. Some witnesses will testify to " King- 
doms subdued," " righteousness wrought," vio- 
lences of fire quenched, mouths of lions stopped, 
whole armies turned to flight, and the believers 
whose faith gets the testimony of splendid works 
and successes like these will, of course, have 
their right to heaven's rest most amply vindi- 
cated. But not only are brilliant successes the 
works and therefore the proofs of genuine faith, 
so are seeming defeats. Some witnesses will 
testify to destitutions, afflictions, tormentings, to 
trials, of mockings and scourgings, of bonds and 
imprisonments, and the believers whom these 
works follow will have their faith proved 
genuine: Lofty works and lowly works, bright 
shining works and hidden works, works done 



214 HERRICK JOHNSON 



and works honestly sought to be done and there- 
fore in God's sight done. These all do follow. 
An only son Isaac offered and a cup of cold 
water given, a soul won and a cross borne, a 
silent struggle, a baptism of tears, a look like 
Christ's on Peter, with a great love and a great 
tenderness and a great forgiveness in it, when a 
cruel stab has come from some trusted friend, 
and the faith thus testified to and vindicated, 
whether of a conquering Abraham or a poor 
harlot like Rahab, whether of a mighty prince in 
Israel or one of the Lord's hidden ones, shall be 
writ all over with the sign manual of the King- 
dom of Heaven. 

But their works do follow T the dead that die in 
the Lord to testify not only to the genuineness 
of their faith, but to the sincerity of their love. 

" He that hath my commandments and keepeth 
them, he it is that loveth me,'" is the infallible test 
to be applied to all professed affection for the 
Lord Jesus. The love that obeys not is like the 
faith that works not, dead, cold and dead. A 
genuine love may not perfectly keep the King's 
precepts, but it will try, and the love-prompted 
efforts, the struggles toward obedience, the at- 
tempts to rise in the way of God's command- 
ments, will be the works that do follow the right- 
eous to tell at heaven's gates of a true and real 
affection. Not necessarily deeds distinguished 
and trumpeted on Earth, for whatever good 
cause and with whatever bountifulness of energy 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 215 



and liberality, but deeds of any sort out of obedi- 
ence to the Lord Christ and with love behind 
them. The alabaster box of Mary and the mite 
of the widow will be as eloquent in their witness 
of love's sincerity as any heroic martyrdom. 
Seeming patchwork here, will be seen to have 
been done with threads of silver and needle of 
gold on Christ's own vesture, if love and tears 
shall have been dropped in among the stitches. 
Thus it will come to pass that the witnessing 
works of God's true saints following them when 
they die, by proving the genuineness of their faith 
and the sincerity of their love, will testify to 
their right to the heavenly rest. 

But this is not their only office. 

II. The Christian's works follow him through 
the gates to contribute to his sources of rest. 

How is it that works here add to its source, 
and therefore to the experience of heavenly 
blessedness? 

They do it in two ways, by their results and 
by their rewards. 

About the results, God's own children often 
make mistakes, by reasons both of over-estimate, 
and under-estimate. The results that loom large 
as they address the eye, that arrest attention 
and become the talk of the crowd and get pub- 
lished from Dan to Beersheba are likely to be 
counted at more than their true value, while the 
deeper and untrumpeted fruits of toil are likely 
to be counted at less than their true value. 



£16 HERRICK JOHNSON 



Philip's works in Samaria, stirring a whole city 
and filling it with joy, doubtless seemed greater 
far than his work with the single traveller read- 
ing his Bible down on that lonely road to Gaza. 
But God himself called Philip for the one and 
set him at the other. And who shall say, weigh- 
ing these respective works in the scales of God's 
balance, who shall say what gave Philip the 
greater source of joy when he died in the Lord, 
and his works did follow him ! 

There are outward results and inward results 
of Christian works. And the outward results are 
sometimes seen and sometimes not. But no work 
for God is wholly fruitless. God has a way of 
returning, after many days, the bread that is cast 
upon the waters. And if the many days stretch 
on into eternity, and the bread is found again 
only when borne by the waters on that other 
shore, is it not still true of such toiling saints 
that their works do follow them, to contribute to 
their heavenly rest ? " My wandering boy, very 
wayward scholar. You here ! " And the breast 
that was thought to be steeled against your 
tenderness and tears will tell how the memory of 
your faithful words broke it at last in penitence 
at Jesus' feet, and how beyond the gates it has 
been looking for you long while that you might 
know about it. 

Ah, these blessed surprises! They will be 
among the abysmal delights of heaven, and a mea- 
sureless contribution to the soul's sources of joy. 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 217 



But the outward results of Christian works, 
whether seen or unseen, are not all. There is an 
inward process going on, a fruit of toil that 
tells on character. The works have wrought 
some wonderful effects on the worker. It is 
here in the spiritual as it is in the natural world. 
The man that puts what he has to good use, 
multiplies his means. He gets paid by increase 
of capital for his employment of capital. The 
blow of the blacksmith tells both ways. It tells 
on the iron, fitting it for greater profit. It tells 
on the muscles of his arm, fitting that for profit, 
too. He gets power while he expends power. 

So it is with works in their effects upon the 
Christian worker. Gifts and graces are cultivated 
and developed and greatly enriched by use. They 
are weakened and shrivelled and finally lost al- 
together by disuse. They that do the most for 
God become the most, by an inevitable law, and 
there is no possible limit to this process of in- 
crease in the world of spirit. The law has its 
metes and boundaries in the natural world. 
There is a point, e.g., beyond which exercise can- 
not go in its development of the body. Time 
and circumstances and the antagonisms devel- 
oped in the race for riches, set limits to the 
acquisitions of property. But there is absolutely 
no limit to growth in the knowledge and love 
of God, in spiritual power, in capacity for joy and 
blessedness. And " works " done here are con- 
stantly enriching the worker in his own inner 



218 HERRICK JOHNSON 



life. He gets more soul as he deals with souls. 
He gets more of God as he deals with God. His 
Christlike work begets the Christlike spirit. He 
puts Christ into his word and deed, and Christ 
comes back to him and into him in the very effort. 
He gets Christ by giving Christ just as the black- 
smith gets power by expending power, and this 
enrichment goes on, while the works go on. And 
when Christians die, in this sense " their works 
do follow them," i.e., in these blessed inner re- 
sults of their works, in this enlarged capacity for 
joy and blessedness and high place and compre- 
hension of the things of God which the faithful 
toilers carry into heaven, and which will forever 
make their heaven the richer and their rest the 
sweeter. 

Haven't you seen Christian men and women, 
growing strong in spiritual stature and large in 
spiritual capacity and rich in spiritual experience, 
by the uses to which they put their gifts and 
graces and the possibilities of development they 
thus disclosed ? And haven't you seen Christians 
beside them remaining weak and effeminate, and 
really dwarfing their capacity and belittling their 
powers and shrivelling up their souls, because 
they put them to no real service for God and 
truth? And then haven't you seen the former 
getting inexpressible sweetness and joy out of 
some word of God, where the latter found only 
leanness and barrenness? Why? As well ask 
why a dull clod gapes at a brilliant sunset and 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 219 



goes his way unmoved, getting no joy for what 
he deems a common every-day daub, while an- 
other, who has cultivated a taste for the beauti- 
ful, is thrilled with the exquisite delight coming 
through that developed sense at sight of such 
divine pencilling! 

I once sat beside a dying saint whose mind was 
almost gone. I thought he gave me no recogni- 
tion. I repeated a part of the Twenty-third 
Psalm. " Though I walk through the Valley of 
the Shadow of Death I will fear no evil, for 
thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they 
comfort me." He was in the Valley. He was 
passing through. But he had tested that rod and 
that staff. He knew that Shepherd's tender 
care. He had been led of Him. often and often, 
beside the deep waters of that wonderful Psalm. 
He had developed a taste for them ! And they 
were sweet. O how sweet, to his parched lips and 
tired heart. Some minutes afterwards, without 
giving another sign of recognition, and when our 
thought had turned to other things, his lips moved 
and we caught the words, " Thy rod and thy staff 
they do comfort me." Oh. yes, " they rest from 
their labors, and their works do follow them." 

And in all this, friends, I have said nothing of 
the contribution to the sources of the rest who 
will be made by the Christians' works because 
of their rewards. I have talked thus far of 
results or effects ; who shall estimate the re- 
wards, who shall tell what the " shining as the 



220 HERRICK JOHNSON 



stars " means, promised to them who shall turn 
many unto righteousness ? Who shall guess what 
honorable and joy-giving trust is intended to be 
committed beyond the gates to those whose works 
do follow them, by the words of the Master, 
" Thy pound hath gained ten pounds. Well done, 
thou good and faithful servant. Have thou au- 
thority over ten cities"? From ten pounds to 
ten cities is immeasurable promotion. If the 
giving a cup of cold water only, in the name of a 
disciple, is worthy of such reward as even God 
has to give, conceive if you can what He will 
bring from out His infinite stores to reward the 
Christian who has borne some heavy cross for 
Him or fought a hard battle or rescued a soul ! 

The practical lessons are obvious. 

i. Our works are immortal as well as we. We 
shall see them again. And we are nearer them 
always than we sometimes think. They were 
wrought in our past. But they live in our pres- 
ent. And they strike on into our future. " Some 
men's sins are open beforehand, going before to 
judgment, and some men they follow after. Like- 
wise also the good works of some are manifest 
beforehand, and they that are otherwise cannot 
be hid." It is evident that we are to look into 
the eyes of our works again. Our present is the 
product of our past, and our works are here now 
in what we are. Their indestructibleness is the 
soul's indestructibleness ! Their permanency is 
the permanency of character. 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 221 



It is preeminently worth our while, therefore, 
to make good friends of our works to see that 
they be good works. If we are going to have 
their company on that long journey, it will be 
pleasanter for us in the end to do right things, 
righteous things. 

2. The second practical thought is, that the 
lowliest work for Christ takes on undying honor 
in the light of this truth. Its being tied to im- 
mortality lifts it out of all meanness and little- 
ness, and tells us how utterly wrong we are in 
cherishing disparaging thought of it. What if our 
paths do not lead where the notable achieve- 
ments can be wrought and where the chief hon- 
ors seem to lie. What if our life appears some- 
how to get filled only with the endless round of 
common things, that give us care, and give us 
little else, when we do long so sometimes, with 
inexpressible longing to put some honor upon 
the brow of our blessed Redeemer! Don't you 
remember they said, " When saw we thee an 
hungered or athirst, or sick or in prison, and 
ministered unto thee ? " And the King said, 
" Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my 
brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me." 

3. The third practical lesson is the toil, and 
the weariness of work here may well be borne a 
little longer, in view of the rest it surely will 
bring. Who are these with white robes and 
palms in their hands ? These are they who came 



222 HERRICK JOHNSON 



out of great tribulation. We may be nearer 
that than we think. 

"One sweetly solemn thought 
Comes to me o'er and o'er : 
I am nearer home to-day 
Thaa ever I've been before. 

"Nearer the bound of life, 

Where we lay our burdens down, 
Nearer leaving the cross, 
Nearer gaining the crown. 

" But lying darkly between, 

Winding down through the night, 
Is the deep and unknown stream 
That leads at last to the light. 

"Father, perfect my trust; 

Strengthen the might of my faith; 
Let me feel as I would when I stand 
On the rock of the shore of death! 

"Feel as I would when my feet 
Are slipping over the brink, 
For it may be I'm nearer home, 
Nearer now than I think ! " 

And when home at last, oh, the sighs that 
shall be changed into songs of deliverance ! Oh, 
the tears that shall be as jewels in the crowns 
of the ransomed! Oh, the labors of weariness 
that shall drop all their weariness and become 
works of rest! Oh, the flowers scarce daring 
to look up into the face of God's beautiful days 
on earth, that shall bloom there at the very foot 
of the throne ! " Blessed are the dead that die in 



AFTERNOON AND EVENING TIME 223 



the Lord ; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest 
from their labors, for their works follow with 
them!" 

The last sentences of this book shall be those 
of triumph — words befitting the great soldier of 
the Cross by whom they were spoken. Herrick 
Johnson rejoiced in the hope of sure and certain 
immortality, and from one of his great sermons 
on " The Resurrection " the following words are 
taken : 

" Only when the resurrection of the dead shall 
be brought to pass will the highest notes and the 
grandest chords in the chorus of our triumph in 
Christ Jesus be struck. Who would not die! 
We may go to the grave with a shout of victory. 
Through and through the Valley of the Shadow 
of Death is shot the glory of these resurrection 
rays. How He banks the way to the tomb with 
flowers, how He transforms the grim skeleton 
into one of God's beautiful angels, come to empty 
our tomb as Christ's tomb in the garden was 
emptied. Oh, Death, where is thy sting? Oh, 
Grave, where is thy victory?" 



WHO WOULD NOT DIE! 



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